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PHKHKMED BY 



The Builders 

By ISABELLE HORTON 
A Story of Faith and "Works 



cP**- 



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DISTRIBUTED BY 

THE DEACONESS ADVOCATE CO. 

(not inc.) 
57 Washington Street, Chicago, III. 



For Sale by all 'BooHjlealer^ 



.CsHg 



Copyright, igio 

by 

Belle L. James. 











CONTENTS 




I. 


Anticipation .... 


7 


II. 


Beginnings .... 


. 27 


III. 


Unfoldings .... 


57 


IV. 


The Next Thing 


93 


V. 


Room to Grow 


129 


lO VI. 


Pictures prom School Life . 


165 


<^ VII. 


Inquire Within 


. 192 


P- 






i 







FOREWORD. 

It is not the purpose of this volume to give 
a history of the Chicago Training School with 
all its contributing interests, in the broad and 
impartial sense of the word. This is not the 
time, neither are we the people, for the prepara- 
tion of such a history. A certain aloofness is 
always necessary to accurate and impartial judg- 
ment. The bird poised high in air sees the land- 
scape in its entirety. The bird sitting upon the 
bough sees chiefly the embowering foliage. Yet 
one sees as truly as the other. Moreover, the 
picture in detail as well as the more compre- 
hensive *^ bird's eye view" is necessary to full 
and complete knowledge. 

The book, then, does not claim to be a liis-siory, 
in the sense of giving the results of an extended 
and impartial investigation. It is a true story 
of the inception and development of a great 
work from the standpoint of the founders. It 
is a heart history, gleaned at first hand, and 
written with the spell of the narrative still upon 
the writer. Such a story may lose something in 
comprehensiveness, but it will gain in intensity 
and human interest. 

May this little book go to the women who '*sit 
at ease in Zion" with a message direct from the 
whitening harvest fields where reapers are so 
greatly needed. 

7. H. 



ANTICIPATION 



LORD, I PRAY FOR THE CITY. 

"Lord, I pray Thee for the great City, that hotbed 
of social sin and personal vice, that center wherein 
is massed so much of awful misery. From out of the 
populous city men groan and the soul of the wounded 
crieth out! Yet it is from the city that spring the 
mighty mission movements and the great organized 
efforts for the uplifting of society. God, bless the 
City, with its enormous possibilities, its wealth of 
young life and strong life, its wealth of gold! Fur- 
ther every earnest effort that is being made to redeem 
the city! Bless its settlements and hospitals and 
all its houses of Mercy, its reform clubs and mis- 
sions, its Churches and its deaconess work. Raise 
up an ever-increasing army of heroic souls to labor 
for the City's good; and hasten the time when our 
earthly cities shall become copies of the beautiful 
pattern, the new Jerusalem coming down from God 
out of heaven!" 



ANTICIPATION 

Girls, girls, girls! Where do they all come 
from? Tall girls and small girls, plain girls 
and pretty girls, young girls and — begging their 
pardon — old girls, and some who might not ap- 
prove of being classed as girls at all. But all, 
whether grave or gay, bearing in their faces a 
certain seriousness, a potential something, that 
enables alert observers to say correctly nine 
times out of ten, — meeting a group on the side- 
walk or in the street car, *' Training School 
Girls!" 

It is the hour for the afternoon constitution- 
al, and the groups come and go like bees in and 
out of the arched doorway of a great brick 
building, or rather group of buildings, occupy- 
ing the entire side of a city square. Let us 
follow an entering group. A wide reception 
hall opens into corridors on either side, on 
the left running down between rows of offices 
and public rooms, and on the right opening 
into reception room and parlors. Here is the 
*' green room" for dignified guests, the cozy 
'* teachers' parlor," and a great ^^ students' par- 
lor," in which a hundred girls with their friends 
might find entertainment. A broad stairway 

9 



10 THE BUILDERS 

leads to regions above, but there is an elevator 
with its ceaseless iips and downs, for the build- 
ing is six stories from top to basement. Then 
alongside, connected by a passage, is another 
building of equal size and proportion, given 
over to dormitories, and still alongside that, 
another, rather more pretentious as to archi- 
tecture. From this comes the deep roll of a 
pipe organ, and entering we find ourselves in a 
beautiful chapel, chastely finished in white and 
gold. With choir loft and galleries it will seat 
seven hundred people. The handsome library 
room in the rear of the building contains thou- 
sands of standard volumes. The floor below the 
chapel is occupied by the big dining room cap- 
able of seating four hundred people at its rows 
and rows of tables. From this we may wander 
through a maze of smaller rooms. A warm, 
fragrant breath heralds the bakery where the 
brown loaves repose in ranks sufficient for an 
army, one would think. Potatoes by the bushel 
are ready for the huge caldron in which they 
are to be boiled. Odors of soap and clean linen 
greet us from the laundry, and a chill of Arctic 
air betrays the eastle-like refrigerator. Every- 
thing bespeaksi the huge scale on which the 
establishment is maintained. 

And everywhere, from chapel to laundry, 
from office to kitchen, you meet the girls. Some- 
times with sweeping cap and broom, sometimes 
with Greek Testament or ponderous volume of 



ANTICIPATION 11 

theology, but always with busy step and pur- 
poseful faces. Here, gathered in one great hive, 
are two hundred and fifty souls, including 
teachers and helpers. 

But this is not all. Across the street are two 
more imposing brick buildings. This is the 
** Extension Department,'' — a home for young 
women where the relation between landlady and 
resident is not merely one of dollars and cents. 
It is really an extension of the Training School 
spirit of kindly interest and helpfulness. *'Man 
shall not live by bread alone," neither woman, 
— and at this center the sordidness of the young 
woman's life of toil in ofSce or school is relieved 
in the evening by music and song, by social 
gatherings or classes wth brief, informal talks 
upon literature, ethics, philanthropy — every- 
thing that would tend to make a Christian home, 
and create an environment of moral and intel- 
lectual aspiration. 

And wider yet does the Chicago Training 
School extend its boundaries of influence. From 
out its walls have gone year by year its daugh- 
ters, equipped for Christian service. In India, 
in Japan, in Africa and South America, and in 
every part of the homeland they are busy with 
works of Christian charity as missionaries, as 
deaconesses, evangelists and teachers. Through 
all these channels, and through its correspond- 
ence department and its flood of outgoing liter- 



12 THE BUILDERS 

ature the School touches thousands of Uvea 
every day, the wide world over. 

Now roll back the panorama of history for 
twenty-five years. In the front parlor of a 
fairly respectable down town residence is gath- 
ered an eager little group of four girls with 
their teacher. There is little to indicate that 
it is intended for a schoolroom, except the cer- 
tainty that it could be intended for nothing 
else. Maps, books and pictures are conspicuous 
by their absence. There is a table, a bit of black- 
board, a dozen chairs all empty but four, and 
pinned on the wall a chart with the course of 
study. 

We have said there were no maps, but on the 
teacher's table lie four pieces of paper, on each 
of which a straggling black line is ambitiously 
labeled, Euphrates River. Near the western bor- 
ders of the same paper a wavy line is affirmed to 
represent the Mediterranean Sea, and a timid 
and irregular row of dots wandering across the 
page assumes to point the route followed by 
Abraham as he ;iourneyed from Ur to the Land 
of Promise. Whether the worthy patriarch 
would recognize his line of march or not, it 
was a suggestive beginning, for like Abraham, 
the teacher was leading her little flock out 
by faith into an unknown land, not knowing 
whither they went, conscious only that God had 
said to them, '^Go forward." 

Someone has said that **Mark Hopkins sitting 



ANTICIPATION 13 

on one end of a log and the student on the 
other would make a college." Here was an 
outfit almost as simple, but here was also *^the 
vision and the dream/' for the teacher was Mrs. 
]\Ieyer and the bare little room held the enfolded 
acorn from which was to spring the wide-spread- 
ing oak, the embryo of the Chicago Training 
School. 

The whole history of this School, with the 
deaconess work, the hospitals, the orphan- 
ages, and other institutions which in the provi- 
dence of God must trace their origin back to 
it. reads like a wonder story. And since a 
story must begin somewhere this may be said to 
begin where most romances end, with a wedding. 

A few years before ]\Iiss Lucy J. Rider 
was field secretary for the Sunday School Asso- 
ciation of the state of Illinois. She was then 
in the prime of young womanhood, a graduate 
of Oberlin College, a woman of rare enthusiasm, 
magnetic presence, and full of energy to the 
finger tips. It vras at a meeting on the historic 
Des Plaines camp grounds that she first saw 
Mr. J. S. Meyer, then assistant secretary in the 
Young Men's Christian Association, and also 
carrying on work in a mission church of Chi- 
cago. The acquaintance culminated in an en- 
gagement and marriage, which occurred May 
21, 1885, and was of more than personal interest. 

Marriages, it is said, — some marriages — are 
made in heaven, and in this case the future of 



14 ^ THE BUILDERS 

the embryonic Training School must have had a 
place in the council of the heavenly powers. For 
in this alliance were combined the idealism, fire, 
and enthusiasm of the one with practical busi- 
ness qualities and organizing ability of high 
order in the other. If Mrs. Meyer was the pro- 
phetic woman for the enterprise, no less waa 
Mr. Meyer the indispensable man. Both had 
that special experience and training which fitted 
them for the work to which they were being 
called, though in different fields. Both were 
the children of Christian homes, and were 
trained from infancy to familiarity with the 
Word of God and the doctrines of the Church. 
Mrs. Meyer had already achieved reputation as 
a Bible scholar and teacher, her published notes 
on Sunday school lessons and plans for Bible 
study bringing her an acceptable income. Mr. 
Meyer in addition to a theological training had 
considerable experience in business enterprises 
and had developed a force of character, a 
patient persistency of purpose, business sagacity 
and experience in the details of the management 
of great enterprises, without which the Train- 
ing School never could have existed. From the 
first they have stood shoulder to shoulder, one 
in purpose, one in devotion and in industry. If 
Mrs. Meyer has stood before the world as the 
moving spirit and inspiration of the move- 
ment, not less has Mr. Meyer been the man 
of affairs, building patiently and unostentatious- 



ANTICIPATION 15 

ly the great institution whose influence has gone 
to the ends of the earth and the islands of 
the sea. 

And the times were ripe for the launching of 
such an enterprise. It has been said that *' when- 
ever a condition becomes a problem, it has also 
become a prophecy," and there is a world of 
optimism in the assertion. To believe that the 
very problem is a challenge to its solution ; that 
in every need is wrapped the promise of ful- 
fillment; that there is lying dormant in some 
man or woman, or in some group of men or 
women, or in the whole body of society, the power 
to right every wrong and to do whatever needs 
to be done, and that the crisis comes to call 
this power into action — ^this is to fortify the 
soul against discouragement and to anchor it 
to the Eternal Righteousness. 

And new and unheard-of problems were con- 
fronting society and the Church. The great 
social revolution which awaited the opening of 
the new century was already sending out its 
prophets with their watchwords of '* Brother- 
hood" and ** Social Service," and the call was 
stirring vaguely the consciousness of Christen- 
dom. Its first response in the Methodist Church 
was a new awakening of the missionary spirit, 
and naturally the womanhood of the Church 
was especially responsive to the call. "Within a 
score of years the Woman's Foreign Missionary 
Society had been *^ struck out of the hearts of 



16 THE BUILDERS 

women white hot with love and pity for the 
woes of their heathen sisters." Then came the 
Woman's Christian Temperance Union, not 
Methodist it is true, but affecting the women 
of Methodism profoundly. Scon followed the 
Woman's Home Missionary Society of the Meth- 
odist and other Churches, in response to the cry 
of need from the rapidly opening fields of the 
home land. 

But into these humanitarian impulses there 
was coming a sense of incompleteness and dis- 
satisfaction. The missionary impulse was abroad 
in the hearts of many, but it was often vague 
in its purpose, indefinite in its methods, and 
doubtful in its results. Something was needed 
to crystallize this impulse into organized effort, 
and to direct it into useful activity. Among 
women especially, where the impulse to service 
was most eager and spontaneous and the lack 
of experience in affairs the most apparent, this 
need was most keenly recognized. It was be- 
coming more and more evident that willing- 
heartedness was not enough. There was also 
needed the trained mind and the deft hand, a 
working knowledge of conditions to be met and 
of the agencies available in meeting them. The 
problem of better preparation and training for 
the newly opening fields of Christian service was 
taking definite form, and prophecies for its solu- 
tion were in the air. 

As the question of better preparation for 



ANTICIPATION 17 

missionary work both at home and abroad be- 
came more and more pressing, various plans 
were devised for meeting the need but all alike 
waited for the leader — man or woman — called oi 
God, and with a life free to devote to this one 
cause. For nothing less than a life would do, 
a life all aflame with enthusiasm and consecrated 
to this purpose alone, a life that could attract 
to itself, as to a magnet, the unworked plans and 
floating enthusiasms of the prophets and the 
seers. 

It cannot be supposed that either Mr. or Mrs. 
Meyer with their ^dde experience in Christian 
work had failed of being deeply impressed with 
the need and the opportunity, though each in a 
different way. On the one hand in his mission 
work Mr. Meyer had come in contact with the 
neglected fields of the city and the need of 
trained workers for these districts. On the other 
hand Mrs. Meyer in her work in Sunday school 
conventions and Normal Bible classes for young 
people had found scores of young women whose 
hearts were responsive to the call for service but 
whose lack of definite training in religious work 
left them unfitted for usefulness. Even among 
Sunday school teachers and leaders the lack of 
acquaintance with the simplest facts of Biblical 
history and literature seemed to her, as she her- 
self says, ** simply appalling," and to their be- 
Beeching question, *^What can I do?" she could 



18 THE BUILDERS 

only reply, in her own mind if not aloud, *'You 
must first get ready to do." 

Impressed with this idea, she had for years 
been turning over in her mind a plan for a 
school for Bible study and normal methods which 
should also include training for both home and 
foreign work. At the Illinois State Sunday 
School Convention of 1882 she presented in a 
public address a well worked out plan for a 
Summer Bible Normal School, the outlines of 
which were in striking agreement with the school 
which was afterward established. In 1884 she 
was in New York City and called upon some 
leading women who were interested in the sub- 
ject of missions in the attempt to interest them 
in the project, w^hich had already begun to 
possess her imagination. Among the first to give 
sympathetic attention to her appeal were Chap- 
lain McCabe and his wife. Mrs. McCabe took 
Miss Rider in her own carriage to call upon 
other ladies who might become interested. Some 
listened politely as this young woman enthusias- 
tically unfolded her plans, some became mildly 
interested and some doubted. Mrs. Meyer her- 
self tells the story of one of these interviews: 
''I explained my plans to the lady, watching 
her face for signs of dissent or approval. She 
listened patiently until I announced that in the 
proposed school young w^omen were to be trained 
for both home and foreign work, and that both 
missionary societies were to be represented in it. 



ANTICIPATION 19 

At this point she raised her hand with a 
gesture of absolute dissent. 'My dear,' she 
said impressively, *that idea alone' — and pen 
cannot express the flat finality of the down- 
ward inflection — 'that idea alone proves the 
absolute impracticability of your plan.' A 
year later," Mrs. Meyer adds gleefully, 'Hhat 
same dear lady handed me her check for a hand- 
some sum, her first contribution to the 'imprac- 
ticable plan,' and she has been a valued friend 
ever since." 

After her marriage Mrs. Meyer was in a posi- 
tion to devote herself more fully to the work 
than she had been able to do before. She wrote 
letters to everyone who she thought would take 
the trouble to consider them. She had already 
learned the power of the printed v/ord, and used 
the religious press to the extent of her ability 
to ''set the people thinking." She wrote facts 
and spun prophetic fiction out of her own brain, 
fiction that has since become strangely and won- 
derfully true. At last, through the secretary of 
the Chicago Methodist Preachers' Meeting, Eev. 
T. P. Marsh, she secured an invitation to present 
the subject of a Training School before that 
body — at that time one of the most influential 
organizations of the Church of the Middle 
West. The presentation of this paper, into 
which Mrs. Meyer poured all the intensity of 
her desires and whose sentences were "saturated 
with prayer," became the first in a series of 



20 THE BUILDERS 

events which from this time moved rapidly on. 
The immediate effect of this paper was the 
appointment of a committee of three ministers 
which, a week later, reported favorably on the 
plan of the proposed School; and a permanent 
committee was formed, having on it members 
of the Preachers' Meeting, the Woman's Home 
and the Women's Foreign Missionary Societies. 
These members were selected with the thought 
in mind that it was fitting that the new enter- 
prise should gather together those actively inter- 
ested in every good work, but not with any idea 
that these organizations should have any formal 
connection with the School — as indeed has neveif 
been the case. A few laymen were soon added 
to the committee. Mrs. Meyer's efforts were now 
concentrated on this committee. Some of them 
had been appointed without their knowledge and 
consent ; it was the season of the year when most 
social and church obligations are laid aside, and 
it was necessary to see many individuals separ- 
ately in the effort to convey to each something 
of the enthusiasm engendered at the Preachers' 
Meeting. Meetings formal and informal were 
held whenever a quorum or anything approach- 
ing it could be got together, meetings at which 
there was talking, '* endless" even if necessary, 
but very little definite result. A meeting waa 
finally held (August 7th, 1885), at Lake Bluff, 
a favorite summer resort north of Chicago, and 
it is quite possible that even so casual a thing 



ANTICIPATION 21 

as a thunder shower was the pivot upon which 
turned for the time at least the fate of the 
Training School. An important Foreign Mis- 
sionary anniversary had been held during the 
day, and the Committee had been summoned to 
meet at its close on the platform. There was 
little interest, however, and some were preparing 
to leave, when the heavens suddenly gathered 
darkness and the rain fell in torrents. The stars 
in their courses seemed fighting for the cause. 
To leave the place was impossible and a number 
of persons already interested in missionary work 
gathered with the committee. There are those 
who look upon that thunderstorm as a special 
dispensation of Providence in behalf of the 
Training School to be. A great factor in the re- 
sult of this meeting was the presence of the re- 
turned missionary, the Reverend Dr. William 
Butler. He had addressed the missionary meet- 
ing before mentioned, and the power and in- 
spiration of his words were still felt among those 
present. Mrs. Meyer with keen foresight had, 
before the Committee Meeting, obtained an in- 
terview with him and elicited his interest in her 
cause. As the decision of the committee wav- 
ered, she now suggested that Dr. Butler's opin- 
ion be asked. The white-haired veteran rose 
and spoke gently but earnestly in favor of the 
plan. His words had the weight of years and 
experience. Eyes began to sparkle, spines to 
straighten, and heads to nod approval, and when 



22 THE BUILDERS 

he said fervently: ''I assure you, friends, your 
missionaries in foreign fields need training be- 
fore they go. I cannot find words to express 
the desire of my heart that this plan shall go 
through." The day was won. The committee 
passed decided resolutions in favor of the school, 
and advised that it be opened for students in 
the fall. 

Events moved rapidly after this. New friends 
were won to the cause and old ones strengthened 
in the faith. A meeting of the committee held 
August 28th will be long remembered. Up to 
this time no provision had been made or could 
be made for teachers' salaries, and this seemed 
an insurmountable barrier to the establishment 
of the school. But at this meeting Mrs. Meyer 
rose and said that if the committee would pro- 
vide a building she and Mr. Meyer would open 
the school without salary for the first year. This 
removed the last stumbling block as it would 
afford an opportunity to demonstrate the feasi- 
bility of the plan. A committee was nominated 
to secure a building but before the final vote 
was taken, ^'realizing the responsibility of what 
they were about to do, the committee suspended 
business for a few minutes, and resolved itself 
into a prayer meeting." After fervent prayer 
for guidance the resolution was passed, the com- 
mittee appointed, and the Training School wag 
definitely and formally ordered to exist. Soon 
after, the three story residence building at No. 19 



ANTICIPATION 23 

dollars a month. To the committee, without a dol- 
Park Avenue west, was secured, with rent at fifty 
lar of resources in sight, this amount seemed for- 
midable enough. Their faith could scarcely look 
forward to the time when they would handle 
thousands as easily as dollars now. But that ia 
another story. 

It will readily be undei^tood that matters had 
not progressed thus far without serious discus- 
sions of the financial problems. Indeed, the 
question of financing the institution had been 
from first to last the heart of the difficulty. 
Gradually it had been brought down to the 
question of teachers' salaries. It had been dem- 
onstrated that the school once begun a moder- 
ate sum paid by the students for room and board 
would meet the running expenses. Friends of 
the movement could be depended upon to pro- 
vide the initiatory expenses and see the school 
launched, but the constantly recurring question 
was, '^^Vhat are you going to do for teachers* 
salaries?" And for a long time there had 
seemed to be no answer. Mrs. Meyer had been 
receiving in her work for the Sunday School 
Association a salary of about eighteen hundred 
dollars a year. Naturally, in her desire for the 
success of the school, she felt willing to cut down 
this amount considerably: but that some stated 
salary would be attached to the position she had 
not for a moment doubted. Though other diffi- 
culties cleared away, this one remained. No 



24 THE BUILDERS 

man of wealth and faith came forward with 
an endowment or promise of aid of any kind. 
The matter was finally settled in a way that was 
unique and has become historic. The problem 
that could not be solved was ignored. The work 
must be done, salary or no salary, this was Mrs. 
Meyer's position; and when she announced her 
readiness to go on with the work for the work's 
sake alone, the last difficulty vanished and the 
school became an assured fact. 

This feature of the Training School work, 
developing as it did into the unsalaried plan 
of deaconess service, has been much misunder- 
stood and much criticised; but it is simple 
enough to those who are able to assume the 
worker's view point. It is no disparagement of 
salaries nor of salaried service. That the 'Work- 
man is w^orthy of his hire" is as incontrovertible 
now as in St. Paul's time. Mrs. Meyer would 
have accepted a remuneration adequate or inad- 
equate as her unquestioned right, had there been 
any provision for such. But the salary was not 
indispensable, as Mr. Meyer's income was at 
that time sufficient for both, and when it became 
a question of giving up the salary or the school, 
her heart answered in the only way possible. 
When, later, Mr. Meyer's entire time and ability 
became absolutely necessary to the rapidly grow- 
ing work, there were still no resources upon 
which to draw for suitable salaries, though all 
other needs were being met. And he, too, gave 



ANTICIPATION 25 

himself unreservedly to the work without ques- 
tion or promise. The work provided for daily 
needs, and they asked no more. Their example 
formed the precedent which was followed as the 
teaching force increased, and which crystallized 
into established form when the deaconess work 
came into existence. 

There be those to whom this solution of a 
difficult situation will ever be an unsolved mys- 
tery, to be regarded with reserve and vague 
suspicion. For the most part they are those to 
whom Sandy's question, ^^How mooch will ye 
gie me?" always comes first in considering a new 
project. There are others to whom even the 
foregoing explanation will seem superfluous; so 
naturally does love for their work, whatever it 
may be, drive questions of emolument into the 
background. Happy are they who, working with 
or without salary, have found the work that 
commands their whole-hearted and joyous de- 
votion, with whom the *'joy of achieving'' 
drowns all other considerations. 

Mrs. Meyer also, in her printed works, depre- 
cates the idea that the unsalaried feature of the 
work indicates that the School was started as a 
*' faith work" in the general acceptation of the 
term. Faith there was that God had led and 
was leading them. The committees from first to 
last were composed of men and women who im- 
plicitly believed in and trusted to Divine guid- 
ance. They assumed that the enterprise they were 
launching was for the promotion of the King- 



26 THE BUILDERS 

dom, and that they could reasonably call upon 
divine resources for its advancement. Hindrances 
they regarded as an indication that in God's 
plan the time was not ripe for certain move- 
ments; success was just as certainly his direct 
command to go forward. Business meetings 
were opened by prayer and song, often with 
Scripture promises quoted from memory; and 
they voiced their exultation over difficulties re- 
moved by singing the Doxology. The secretary's 
reports read like a chapter from a devotional 
meeting. More than once when they were con- 
fronted by '^ lions in the way" they dropped 
on their knees and laid the matter definitely 
and simply before God; and, rising, continued 
the business in faith that their prayers were an- 
swered. Take this picture of a committee meet- 
ing held just before the opening of the second 
year, before the new building had been com- 
pleted : 

September 20, 1886. An upper room; but five or 
six of the Board of Management present. An empty 
treasury; many discouragements; troublesome work- 
men. But, thank God, many students applying. It 
is a business committee meeting, but someone begins 
to sing **A charge to keep I have," and then all drop 
on their knees, and there they stay until each has 
"told Jesus." And the Light shines. God will help 
us and that right early. 

So in the best and broadest sense the School 
was begun as a faith work. It was faith at 
work. It was faith looking for and receiving 
from heavenly storehouses the divine dynamic 
that could make effective human agencies. 



BEGINNINGS 



GIVING LIFE AWAY. 

Do you know the very best thing a man or a 
woman can do with a life is to give it away? Ac- 
tually to give it, freely, recklessly, gladly, as the Lord 
Jesus gave His? Thousands of unknown saints and 
martyrs are doing this day by day for the sake of 
loved ones, for husbands, wives, children, parents. 
All honor to them. But there are thousands more 
who have no such tender and immediate ties — ^thou- 
sands who have time, talent, money, that might be 
used in a broader way for the sake of the great, sick, 
sorrowful world. Don't sell your life. There is no 
great, uplifting joy in a commercial transaction. Give 
it, give it, and thank God for the privilege. Give it 
and see how the *'joy of the Lord" will flow back, 
a great flood, to enrich your own heart and life. 

Plain living? Hard work? Uncongenial compan- 
ionship? What does it matter? Serge is as warm as 
satin if love sweetens labor, and as for companion- 
ship, the Lord himself will walk with you. You will 
find Him in the weary, pitiful faces of mothers, and 
the innocent smiles of childhood. He said it — *Te 
did it unto Me." 

Rise up, then, ye women that are at ease, ye care- 
less daughters! Give ear to the Voice that would call 
you from a life of self-seeking that leads to death 
to the life of self-renunciation which alone is true 
living. "The work of righteousness shall be peace, 
and the effect of righteousness, quietness and con- 
fidence forever." Peace, quietness, confidence — can 
you find them in idle pleasure-seeking? But blessed 
will you be in sowing beside all waters deeds of peace 
and love. — Isahelle Horton, 



BEGINNINGS. 
II. 

Oh, the wonderful first days of a great enter- 
prise ! They hold the joy of the explorer, 
threading new paths to be beaten broad by the 
myriad feet of the future, the exultation of the 
master builder as he sees the creation of his 
brain taking shape in arch and dome. One is in 
league vnth heavenly powers and counts not 
pain or sacrifice in the joy of achievement. He 
rides on the crest of the billows. His head is 
among the clouds. He reads the mystic writing 
of the stars and all signs say **Go on and pros- 
per.'' He does the impossible day by day, and 
glories in the doing. 

The enthusiasm may and must remain, if the 
enterprise is to be a success; but it becomes a 
settled and familiar enthusiasm. Never again 
that thrill of wonder in answered prayer, new 
every morning, fresh every evening, while the 
soul dwells in the very presence of the Invisible. 
How shall the mere historian catch the inspira- 
tion of those golden days when the dreams and 
prophecies that heralded the opening of the first 
"Woman's Training School in Methodism^ — that 
**new departure in education "—were taking 
material form ? How express in words the glow 

29 



30 THE BUILDERS 

of the ideal that illumined the lives of teachers 
and students alike, making of humble toil a 
sacrament and of self-denial a joy? 

Little enough truly of this mystic illumination 
would have been apparent to the unenlightened 
passerby on that Saturday afternoon of the 
sixth of October when the School passed from 
the realm of the visionary and hypothetical and 
became a visible fact. The fact at that time was 
anything but imposing. Even the elements were 
unpropitious. A drizzling October rain had set- 
tled into a steady down-pour when, late in the 
afternoon, a wagon with a small load of house- 
hold goods stopped before the house at No. 19 
Park Avenue. Mr. Meyer, who rode over with 
the driver, alighted and unlocked the house, and 
assisted in unloading the goods and bestowing 
them inside. The house had stood unoccupied 
for months, darkness and dirt reigned supreme. 
After a rapid diagnosis of the situation, the new 
tenant decided that the first things needed were 
candles, a broom, and some matches. Out he 
went again into the driving rain to find a shop 
where he might procure these essentials of civi- 
lization. He had scarcely disappeared when 
Mrs. Meyer, alighting from a street car a block 
away, approached the house carrying in her 
hands two treasures that had been overlooked in 
the packing or were too precious to be entrusted 
to the public carrier. They were a lamp, and 
a tiny slip of a plant which she confesses was 



BEGINNINGS 31 

a memento of the wedding that had occurred but 
six montlhs before. The lamp must have been 
as empty as those of the foolish virgins for she, 
too, entered, gave one glance around the empty 
house, and disappeared in search of candles, a 
broom and some matches. 

Both were successful in their quest, and met 
a few moments later on the front steps to com- 
pare their purchases. But they agreed that 
there was not a candle, a match, nor a broom too 
many to meet the emergency and they fell to 
with a will. The lighted candles did their 
humble best toward dispelling the gloom but the 
shadows gathered deep along the halls and stair- 
ways, and the new brooms, vigorously wielded, 
filled the atmosphere with the dust of ages. But 
nothing mattered to these two, who laughed and 
jested as if nothing in the world could ever 
again disturb their utter content. Storm and 
wet, confusion and weariness — all were but a 
trifling bit of alloy in a beautiful world full of 
work to be accomplished, and great desires to 
be achieved. 

A small space was made clean, a small rug 
laid down, and a few household goods unpacked 
and arranged to make a ** parlor" wherein they 
might spend the Sabbath. It fell to Mr. Meyer 
to set up the bedstead. The expressman in un- 
loading had broken one of its castings — after the 
manner of expressmen — and Mr. Meyer, fitting 
it together, found himself in the position of 



32 THE BUILDERS 

sole support of a disabled bedstead which fell 
prone upon the floor whenever he relaxed his 
hold. A bit of rope and a good stout nail, he 
reflected, would solve the difficulty. The rope 
was within the limit of possibilities but the nail 
— ^he pictured dismally another trip in the rain 
in search of a hardware store ; but just then Mrs. 
Meyer came near with a candle and there in its 
little circle of light on the dusty floor lay a nail, 
big and straight and strong, just suited to his 
purpose. Removing his shoe and using the heel 
for a hammer, the necessary repairs were soon 
accomplished. 

Under ordinary circumstances a big, empty 
house in which people have lived and from 
which they have gone away is suggestive of noth- 
ing so much as a body from which the soul has 
departed. But to these people the empty, echo- 
ing rooms were in imagination already swarm- 
ing with life; the shadow-haunted halls and 
gloomy stairways echoed to the tread of student 
feet and resounded to the music of girlish voices. 
The great empty shell was already alive with 
the busy, purposeful life that was to be. 

And will they ever forget that first Sunday 
in their new home ! The dutiful pilgrimages to 
church, the lunch of bread and butter and 
canned chicken eaten cold in a colder room, the 
chicken carved with the renmant of the pearl- 
handled pen knife that had been sacrificed in 
opening the can — ^the result of putting fine tools 
to common uses. 




The First Four Students. 



BEGINNINGS 33 

From the time of the cave dweller who lighted 
his fire of dry leaves on a flat rock to that of 
the steam heated flat, the life of the home has 
depended largely upon the family hearthstone 
or whatever substitute civilization provides. 
Early Monday morning Mr. Meyer started out 
to secure something in the way of a domestic 
shrine. He returned with the best that circum- 
stances afforded, a three dollar kerosene oil stove, 
and this carried down stairs for the cooking and 
up stairs for warming did duty for the 
weeks that intervened before coal could be pro- 
vided for the furnace, and a range for the 
kitchen. True, it deposited drops of oil along 
the stairs, and an unmistakable odor upon Mr. 
Meyer's Sunday trousers, but these were minor 
matters. 

"VATien he returned with the stove Mr. Meyer 
found Mrs. Meyer engaged in writing an article 
on Missionary Training Schools for Women, an 
article which she had begun Saturday night, 
using her lap for a table. Clearly, the next 
obvious necessity was an office, or at the very 
least, an office desk. There was no dream of a 
commodious modern apartment fitted up with 
mahogany roller top desks and complicated de- 
vices for files, cabinets, secret drawers and what- 
not ; but two large packing boxes turned on their 
sides and neatly covered with newspapers, fur- 
nished each w^th a desk which adapted itself 
easily to enlargement, and developed a wonder- 



34 THE BUILDERS 

ful capacity for pigeon holes and recesses suited 
to a large and growing business. And surely 
the correspondence and business enterprises 
emanating from these packing box desks were 
not the less dynamic for their rude origin. 
There was no need for elaborate combinations 
of locks and keys for the safeguarding of filthy 
lucre, for there was no laying up of treasures 
on earth. Money found a place waiting for it 
when it arrived and in rapid transit went to pay 
the bills of *^ butcher and baker and candlestick 
maker." 

But a house and a teacher will not make a 
school, and still the question was, will students 
come? People— not the elect few who had been 
praying and laboring for such a school for years 
— ^but the great body of good and well-meaning 
people who make up the world and a large part 
of the Church, had said students would not 
come. More than that, they said they did not 
need to come; that the Sunday School and the 
Church would fit young women for anything 
they needed to do in missionary lines. There 
were even some who said that young women 
could not be trained to the exacting duties of a 
missionary's life — it was the old theory of 
woman's mental and physical incapacity which 
time and advancing civilization has not yet 
wholly exploded. 

But clearly the people must be told that the 
School was open and ready for business. The 



BEGINNINGS 35 

two pioneers worked incessantly, and letters and 
circulars began to flow out from the packing 
box desks in a steady stream, by hundreds and 
by thousands. October 20 was set for the open- 
ing of the School and everybody was invited. 

But meantime the house must be furnished, 
and the original Committee which had now re- 
solved itself into a Board of Managers, arranged 
to meet at the house to consider the question. 
The Board at this time consisted of Dr. Park- 
hurst, Rev. T. P. Marsh, Mr. and Mrs. Black- 
stone, Mesdames Danforth, Cummings, Hill, 
Hagans, Marcy and Hobbs, Rev. A. W. Patten, 
Mr. G. D. Elderkin, and Mr. and Mrs. Meyer. 
Notwithstanding the limitations of the kerosene 
stove and the unfurnished pantry, Mrs. Meyer 
formed the ambitious determination to give a 
little supper. A dining table, chairs, and a set 
of dishes were ordered, and preceded the com- 
pany by only a few hours. Napkins and silver 
were borrowed for the occasion. Notwithstanding, 
there were some trifling embarrassments as when 
the host, urging a guest to a second helping of 
oysters, heard a warning, ^^Sh'. There isn't an- 
other one"; or as when the head of the table 
inquired in an easy, broad-minded manner, ^*Tea 
or coffee?" only to hear a horrified whisper at 
her back, *' There is only coffee." Or when a 
dignified Doctor of Divinity in the midst of a 
deep discussion of ways and means found it 
necessary to inquire of his neighbor sotto voce, 



36 THE BUILDERS 

''Can you lend me your spoon a moment to stir 
my coffee?" But these were parentheses merely 
and plans went lucidly on in spite of them, until 
furnishings were provided for three floors, in- 
cluding the basement. This furniture to the 
value of nearly seven hundred dollars was near- 
ly all pledged and afterward contributed by the 
Board and a few friends. 

The Rock River Annual Conference, at its fall 
meeting of 1885, heartily approved the School, 
and at every session since has commended its 
work. 

Came the eventful day of the opening of the 
School. The furniture had been sent in, the 
rooms were in order, four students had arrived. 
The front parlor, w^hich had been dedicated to 
class work, was imposing with new chairs and a 
blackboard, and the floor was resplendent with 
a coat of paint applied the day before by Mr. 
Meyer's own hands. A distinguished speaker, 
the Rev. Dr. P. H. McGrew of India, had been 
secured for the occasion. The folding doors be- 
tween the class room and the back parlor were 
thrown open and every chair in the building 
brought to the front for the expected crowd. 
Evening came, and the crowd consisted of three 
persons beside the family. It was a crushing 
disappointment to some, but the speaker rose to 
the occasion and delivered an address as great 
and good as the crowd was expected to be. Mr. 
Meyer with his invincible optimism declared the 



BEGINNINGS 37 

audience was all that could have been expected, 
everything considered, and they went on to the 
next thing. 

Their next attempt at inveigling an unsym- 
pathetic public within their walls was the ''first 
annual reception," given on the 12th of No- 
vember. At this social function the weather 
again took a reactionary hand in the form of a 
heavy rain. With a number of distinguished 
names on the program and refreshments pro- 
vided for two hundred guests, the number pres- 
ent was about twelve. Four times as many as 
at the previous effort, they told themselves. 
Again the program was unexceptionable. Dr. J. 
H. Vincent acquitting himself as gallantly as 
though his audience numbered thousands. But 
the refreshments provided for the occasion ''did 
coldly furnish forth" the food of the little fam- 
ily for days to come. "We had sandwiches cold 
and sandwiches hot," bewails Mrs. Meyer, "and 
sandwiches steamed and fried, and hashed," un- 
til the disappearance of the last one gratefully 
heralded the approach of Thanksgiving day. 
"All experiences are interesting when they are 
over with," sagely remarks the humble philoso- 
pher, and the interest of these early attempts 
at entertaining the public is enhanced by com- 
parison with later receptions and anniversaries 
of the School where the two acres of floor space 
of the new buildings are crowded with the best 
citizens of town and country. 



38 THE BUILDERS 

''Today we had a new student, this makes 
eleven, '^ is the naive entry in the principal's 
journal less than three weeks after the School 
opening. But even before this the faith of the 
founders had leaped forward, and plans were 
on foot looking toward securing a permanent 
building for the enterprise. The first attempt 
at raising money for this purpose has become 
historical as ''The Nickel Fund/' It was a 
plan for raising a large sum of money by many 
small contributions. In the paper read by Mrs. 
Meyer at the Chicago Preachers' Meeting the 
previous June she had used these words: 

Can a twenty-five thousand dollar Home be built 
out of nickels? There are one million of women in 
the Methodist Episcopal church of the United States 
alone. Someone pleads for a penny a day from these 
women for the cause of missions. I would not ask 
that — three hundred and sixty-five cents every year — 
but five cents from each. Not once a day nor once 
a year, but once in a life time. Five cents! The 
despised nickel that v/e hand out so readily for a 
street car fare or the daily paper. And fifty thousand 
dollars, twice the amount asked for, would be in our 
hands for this building. 

When the Tabernacle was built thirty-four centur- 
ies ago, the people came, ''as many as were willing- 
hearted, and brought bracelets and ear rings and 
rings, all jewels of gold." ''And they made the laver 
of brass of the looking-glasses of the women assem- 
bling" (Exodus 35:22 and 38:8). Oh, for some such 
wave of willing-heartedness to sweep over Christian 
women today! If the bushels of unused jewelry be- 
longing to the women of the Church, the surplus, the 



BEGINNINGS 39 

cast-off trinkets laid away in jewel cases, if these only 
could be brought, how quickly could the foundation 
of the building be laid in them! Paul's direction was 
"Let every one of you give.'* If every one would 
only give something, no matter how little, then there 
would be money enough and to spare. * 

Mrs. ]\Iarcy, of Evanston, later a member of 
the original Committee, caught at the suggestion 
of Mrs. Meyer and at the close of the meeting 
began to put it into practice by demanding 
nickels from her friends ^ ' for the new Training 
School Building." Mr. Meyer then had the ap- 
peal printed upon slips of paper, and purchas- 
ing a large number of cheap little blank books 
he pasted a printed slip in the front of each 
and commenced sending them out with requests 
that friends of the cause would use them in col- 
lecting money for the School. During the next 
few months eighteen hundred of these little mes- 
sengers were sent broadcast through the country, 
and for two or three years continued to come 
back bringing their gleanings. Nearly three 
thousand dollars were realized from this source, 
which in those early days was quite an imposing 
sum. 

But more important than the money was the 
wide advertising which the School received 
through this appeal. Every one of these humble 
little books, returning with a dollar or more, 
meant that the new School had been a subject 
of personal conversation at least a score of times, 
and to be talked about by twenty thousand pea- 



40 THE BUILDERS 

pie at this particular period was a great de- 
sideratum. 

Among the special providences of those early 
days must be counted the advent of Miss Eliz- 
abeth Holding, the first of that large corps of 
volunteer workers, who, from first to last, by 
their devotion and ability have made the suc- 
cess of the work possible. Miss Holding, who 
was a foster sister of Mrs. Meyer's, had been 
spending several years as a missionary in South 
America. She was a woman of rare gifts and 
among many others that most charming and 
desirable one of practical housekeeping. For 
several months she skillfully superintended the 
domestic arrangements of the growing establish- 
ment, at the same time aiding on the teaching 
force, assisting with the correspondence and mail- 
ing department and helping in the numerous 
other ways that her devoted spirit and versatile 
talents suggested possible. 

Another member of the family at this time 
and for many years afterward was Mrs. Meyer's 
tiny white-haired mother, Mrs. Rider, who, in 
her lace cap and white apron used to slip about 
doing the * kittle kindnesses" that mean so much 
toward bringing the real home spirit into in- 
stitutional life. Mrs. Meyer is fond of telling 
a little incident which she had heard of her 
mother's childhood which she considers as giving 
the keynote of her character. This is the story : 
When but a little toddler she was coming 



BEGINNINGS 41 

home through a piece of woods with her aunt. 
Perhaps the baby feet were growing tired, or 
the attractions of the wayside flowers caused her 
to linger. ''Come, dear/' said the aunt, ''it is 
growing late; we must hurry." But still the 
child loitered behind. At last the aunt said, 
"Auntie's tired. Can't you take hold of her 
hand and help her along?" At once the little 
one grasped the outstretched finger, and with a 
touching little air of responsibility gravely led 
the way home. Always it was the appeal to 
"Help somebody," that roused all the latent 
strength of her character. 

The general policy of the School as it has 
continued for twenty-five years, with the ex- 
ception of such modifications as have been de- 
manded by rapid growth, was pretty clearly out- 
lined during the first few weeks. At first all 
the house work was done by the family and stu- 
dents. The price paid for board — ^two dollars 
and seventy-five cents a week, afterwards raised 
to three and a half — was just about sufficient to 
meet the current expenses. Mrs. Meyer relates 
with some pride that she resolved not to ask the 
students to do any portion of the work that she 
herself had not first done. "So," she says, "I 
tried my hand at every branch of housekeeping 
in turn. I remember scrambling out of bed 
morning after morning long before daybreak 
and rushing down to the cold, dark kitchen to 
get breakfast. But I met my Waterloo when 



42 THE BUILDERS 

it came to washing the big windows. And as 
I had to admit that they were beyond me, the 
window cleaning was from that time turned over 
to professionals." As the work enlarged others 
of the more difficult lines of work, such as cook- 
ing, washing, scrubbing and the like, have been 
turned over to hired helpers, but the lighter 
branches, dishwashing, dusting, sweeping and 
taking care of the rooms, is still done by the 
students, most of whom still prefer to devote 
one hour a day to these domestic duties. 

Three hours a day were spent in the class 
room, but only one or at most two of these 
were taken by the resident teachers. It was 
desired to give the class work the broadest pos- 
sible character and to this end the co-operation 
of doctors, preachers, college professors, nurses, 
missionaries and prominent laymen was solicited. 
They responded with marvelous generosity and 
the School has from the first numbered in its 
corps of volunteer lecturers and teachers some 
of the best intellects of the country and people 
of world-wide fame. It is much, perhaps, even 
now for a great man or woman whose time is 
more precious than gold to give a lecture or a 
course of lectures to the school of two hundred 
students without other remuneration than the 
joy of doing good ; but to give an equal amount 
of time and talent to a little and unknown group 
of ten or twelve whose future career was wholly 
problematical, implied an amount of faith and 



BEGINNINGS 43 

altruism little short of heroic. The first resident 
faculty consisted of Mrs. Meyer, who taught 
Bible and Methods; Mr. Meyer, Old Testament 
and Church History; and Miss Holding, Mis- 
sions and Director of Field Work. Among the 
teachers and lecturers from outside grateful 
mention must be made of the Rev. Wm. Fawcett, 
D.D. ; the Rev. John Williamson, D.D.; Drs. I. 
N. Danforth and C. AV. Earle, Mr. Wm. E. 
Blackstone, and Rev. M. M. Parkhurst, D.D., 
who from the beginning has faithfully every 
year given valuable courses of lectures at the 
School. See pp. 155-157. 

Another feature of the School which was des- 
tined to produce great and, at the time, unex- 
pected results was the practical missionary 
work, or 'Afield work," of the students. The 
first year, two afternoons a week were spent in 
visitation in the neglected portions of the city. 
Within a few weeks the first industrial school 
was started by the students in what was then 
known as Douglas Park Mission. This experi- 
mental work in visitation and in Sunday schools, 
missions, and industrial schools has always been 
a leading feature of the work of the Training 
School, folloT\dng as to its methods the advanc- 
ing lines of scientific philanthropy and charity, 
as they have crystallized into general '* Social 
Service. ' ' 

The first '^ Students' Prayer Meeting" was 
held Friday evening, October 30th. Of this 



44 THE BUILDERS 

Mrs. Meyer writes in her journal: *^Some of the 
girls were naturally very homesick, but we could 
see their faces grow bright during the short 
meeting/' 

Within a few weeks after the opening of the 
School it was thought a cause for great con- 
gratulation, and worthy of record in the report 
of the secretary of the Board of Managers, that 
both the Woman's Foreign and the Woman's 
Home Missionary Societies had formally in- 
dorsed the School at their annual fall meetings. 
The meeting of the Woman's Foreign Society 
was being held at Evanston and Mrs. Meyer and 
the ** girls" celebrated the good news by visiting 
Evanston in a body and spending a day in the 
** communion of saints." 

But over all and through all these various 
interests there was ever the impending problem 
of finances. What they should eat and what 
they should drink, and wherewithal should the 
rent bill and the postage, and the printing bills, 
and the gas and water bills be paid, was the ever 
present question ; and Elijah himself could 
scarcely have received his daily rations more 
implicitly as from the hand of Providence than 
did these babes in the wilderness of finance. 
The bills as they came in were made a subject of 
special prayer; the household was called to- 
gether to rejoice over an unexpected donation, 
and they sang the Doxology when cash and 
credit accounts seemed likely to balance. Of a 



BEGINNINGS 45 

gift of two and a half dollars sent ^*with earnest 
prayer for the School/' Mrs. Meyer writes, 
**This small gift is a great encouragement to 
us." Of a check for one hundred dollars, ''This 
is a deliverance." And indeed it might easily 
be regarded as such, for when the first one came, 
bills for printing and incidentals had been ac- 
cumulating with nothing with which to pay 
them to the amount of just about one hundred 
dollars. So at last, ^'very reluctantly," they had 
been placed in an envelope and addressed to the 
treasurer, Mr. Blackstone of Oak Park. It 
seemed like a confession of defeat. But before 
it was taken to the postoffice along came this 
check from Mrs. Robert Fowler, just enough to 
cancel the indebtedness. The check was enclosed 
with the bills and sent along, and once more all 
was well. 

A Thanksgiving basket of the most accredited 
and orthodox description, turkey, cranberries, 
celery and all, with a cordial note from their 
faithful friends, Mr. Blackstone and Dr. Park- 
hurst, came to hand with their first Thanksgiving 
morning, and a two dollar bill from Mrs. Hobbs, 
furnished the et ceteras. The family at this time 
numbered fourteen, and of them it is recorded, 
**It is doubtful if fourteen happier or more 
grateful hearts exist today than those that sur- 
rounded our Thanksgiving board. Nearly every 
one felt that, next to personal salvation, the 
thing to be grateful for was the establishment 



46 THE BUILDERS 

of the School — it is so manifestly the Lord's 
doing." But when just at the close of the 
repast a wagon drove up loaded with vegetables, 
fruits and provisions ** enough for a month" 
their cups fairly overflowed, and the dinner 
party broke up in an effervescence of joy as all 
hands assisted in bestowing the articles inside. 
The good people from Oak Park had sent them. 
There was everything from grapes to pumpkins, 
and the kitchen and dining room ** looked like 
a grocery store" after the goods were delivered. 

At the second students' prayer meeting one 
of the girls told how, in gratitude for the School, 
she had been praying especially for some large 
gift for the work; and that she might not for- 
get she had resolved that every time she heard 
the door bell ring she would send up a prayer 
for this one thing. **The door bell has rung 
a great many times this week," writes Mrs. 
Meyer in her journal, ''but we should not have 
been tempted to impatience with peddlers and 
tramps had we known that every jingle of the 
bell sent a prayer flying heavenward." 

Toward the end of November the rent bill be- 
gan to loom up formidably and it was thought 
necessary to make this a subject of prayer, 
though they had not '* mentioned such matters 
to the Lord for weeks, being engaged in praying 
that a door might be opened by which certain 
students who could not pay their own expenses 
could be admitted to the School." The last day 



BEGINNINGS 47 

of the month the treasurer came for consultation 
with the principal and they had a '*long talk" 
over the matter. It seemed that the cash for 
rent was nine dollars short. They decided that 
they would not ask their friends to make up the 
deficiency. They had asked the Lord and would 
ask no one else. *^So the matter rests/' says 
the journal. The next day, November 30, the 
pastor of AVestern Avenue Church called 
with twenty-one dollars and eight cents, the pro- 
ceeds of a collection taken on Thanksgiving day 
for the work — enough to pay the balance of the 
rent and also the gas and v/ater bills, which 
were due. The news flew about the house as by 
magic, and as ]\Irs. Meyer closed the door on 
the good pastor who had brought the offering 
she turned to meet a group of happy faced girls 
on the stair, w^ho had *'^all been praying for it." 
Little wonder that there rested upon them day 
by day, **a peculiar sense of the nearness of 
God." Quite as inevitably experiences like this 
knit the hearts of teachers and students together 
in a happy bond of love and fellowship. Little 
testimonies bubbling over from full hearts in 
halls or kitchen as the students went about their 
duties, expressed even more than the more for- 
mal testimonies in student meetings. *^0h! I'm 
so glad I'm here," cried one. **I should want 
to be here if I had to work twice as hard." 

In this chapter of ** Beginnings" we must not 
fail to note a 'Uittle one" that has become, not 



48 THE BUILDERS 

"a thousand'' but tens of thousands, and is 
pressing hard toward the hundred thousand 
mark. Among other dynamics emanating from 
the packing box desks there appeared about the 
first of January a modest little four page sheet 
bearing its mission in its name, * * The Message. ' ' 
Just big enough for a capital tract, its friends 
said in dubious commendation. It was a mes- 
sage from the infant enterprise to the wide 
world, a voice crying in the wilderness. Among 
its first modest requests we find an appeal for 
the Nickel Fund, another for scholarships for 
students, and a request for twenty-five thousand 
dollars for a new building! It contained also 
the journal of the School for the first two 
months, set forth the plan and purpose of the 
institution, and acknowledged gifts. It was a 
wonder in w^hat it contained ; but then, natural- 
ly, the young candidate for literary honors had 
not a line of advertising. But the Message 
grew like Jonah's gourd. It doubled its pages 
in the second issue and bustled with advertise- 
ments. Issued as a quarterly for the first nine 
months, it began its second year as a monthly. 
Mr. Meyer's previous training in a publishing 
house had given him valuable experience, and 
now enabled him to manage the printing and 
mailing with economy and success. From the 
very beginning he has carried the entire finan- 
cial burden of the enterprise. It was self-sup- 
porting from the start. In its pages Mrs. Meyer, 



BEGINNINGS 49 

as editor, took the world into her confidence, 
and poured out all her enthusiasm for the 
School and her ambitions for its future. 

Later, when the deaconess work appeared, the 
dignified first-born of the School, The Message 
extended its scope and helped it to achieve suc- 
cess. In doing this it assumed the title of **The 
Message and Deaconess World." Still later, 
dropping its original title as its mission in that 
direction seemed to be finished, it took its place 
among recognized Church periodicals as ''The 
Deaconess Advocate." It is now an illustrated 
sixteen page monthly with a circulation of 32,000 
and is the official organ of deaconess work under 
the Methodist Deaconess Association. 

On the day of the opening of the School, Mrs. 
Meyer v/rote fervently: ''Five pupils form our 
first class, including Miss Howard, who is study- 
ing medicine for the foreign field. We look 
forward with confidence to the time when this 
number shall be multiplied ten fold. The Lord 
hasten it." Few in those days of trial and ex- 
periment could have looked forward "with con- 
fidence" to the increase of the work, not ten but 
forty fold within a quarter of a century. Still, 
with the advent of the first dozen students all 
questions as to the expediency of maintaining 
such a school disappeared and it was no longer 
a subject for discussion. 

During the late winter and spring a com- 
mittee were occupied in a search for a larger 



50 THE BUILDERS 

building for the School, but none could be found 
suited to the purpose. At length it was decided 
to buy a lot, and build whenever sufficient funds 
were in sight to warrant such a procedure. But 
as always there was great hesitation in assum- 
ing financial responsibility, and all alike shared 
the fear of encumbering themselves with debt. 
Still, there seemed no other way but to go for- 
ward. In February two desirable lots were un- 
der discussion but to the surprise of all both 
were bought up by other parties before the 
Training School committee could secure them. 
Another was reported by Mr. Meyer on the cor- 
ner of Dearborn Ave., and Ohio St., a lot a hun- 
dred feet long and twenty wdde. The location 
was thought particularly desirable, as it was 
within walking distance of the city hall where 
all the street car lines converged. The price of 
this lot was stated to be three thousand dollars, 
a surprisingly low figure. The Board was called 
together and voted to buy it. Mr. Meyer flew to 
the real estate agent's office determined not to 
be too late again, but to his dismay he was in- 
formed that the clerk had made a mistake and 
the price of the lot was not three but six thou- 
sand. There was nothing to be done but to call 
the Board together again. There was much de- 
liberation and discussion, in the course of which 
Mrs. H. M. W. Hill, one of the elect ladies, arose 
and said that if this lot was the one the Lord 
had selected for them in answer to their prayers 



BEGINNINGS 51 

it would be just as safe to accept it at six thou- 
sand as three, and moved to purchase it. The 
motion was carried. Following this action came 
the news that Mrs. Philander Smith of Oak 
Park, had promised three thousand dollars and 
her daughter, Mrs. W. B. Blackstone, two thou- 
sand more for the School. In the enthusiasm 
engendered by this news, Mrs. E. E. Marcy 
rose and said she would be responsible for one 
thousand dollars. Other gifts followed and the 
lot was secured without debt, and once more 
the doxology was sung. 

This was the status quo as the school year 
— ^the year of probation — drew to a close. Some 
things had been settled. The question of con- 
tinuing the work was no longer under discus- 
sion. In March, fifteen students were in attend- 
ance which was all the house would hold and 
tw^enty applications had been considered for the 
coming year. Clearly, enlargement was the pro- 
gram for the summer. The lease for the build- 
ing they occupied expired the first of May, and 
it was decided to give up the house, and to store 
the furniture for the summer. It was Tioped 
that a new building could be got ready for 
occupation by October. 

The first Commencement was held April 29 
in the old First Church, which has witnessed 
so many notable events. Of course there was 
no graduating class, but there were sufficient 
grounds for making it a memorable occasion. 



52 THE BUILDERS 

Bishop Bowman gave the address, a prophet's 
message full of hope and inspiration. Mr. Black- 
stone followed, speaking with great power. The 
reports of the year's work showed that twenty- 
two students had been in attendance during the 
year. Most of the time the building had been 
filled to its capacity. The financial report is in- 
teresting by way of comparison with later ones. 
The sum paid for board by the students had 
met the running expenses. The total expense 
for rent, printing, and incidentals, amounted to 
$788.88. This, and $80.00 for aid for students 
who needed help, had all been contributed by 
friends of the school. 

The story of the faith, enthusiasm, and devo- 
tion of the little band of students reads like a 
chapter from early church history. The com- 
munity spirit was fostered by sharing in the 
work of the home and in mutual interest in all 
that concerned the welfare of the institution. 
When the prospects were bright all rejoiced to- 
gether, and when a season of hard times was 
upon them all put up with meager fare un- 
complainingly. At one time there was no money 
for butter, but they simply did without it and 
studied and prayed the harder. As the work 
began to be widely known, and especially the 
fact that the students were doing mission work 
among the poor of the city, second hand cloth- 
ing began to be sent in ^*for the poor," and if 
need was they shared with the poor. But over 



BEGINNINGS 53 

all hardships and self-denial brooded a great 
joy. *^The joy of the Lord was their strength." 
After the School closed, Mr. and Mrs. Meyer 
with their mother, Mrs. Rider, went to live in 
a rented flat in Lal^e View for the summer, and 
the furniture was stored. Every energy was 
now turned toward raising funds for the new 
building. The architect submitted plans for a 
building covering every foot of space on the lot 
with four stories and basement, a building that 
would provide comfortably for about fifty stu- 
dents. This seemed at the time adequate pro- 
vision for years, should their wildest dreams of 
success be realized. The ownership of property 
made a charter necessary, and a more formal 
organization than they had heretofore needed. 
The original managing body now created the 
Chicago Training School Society, a company of 
men and women which has ever since faithfully 
stood behind the School organization, and the 
society elected a Board of nine trustees from 
their number : Dr. M. M. Parkhurst, President ; 
Dr. T. P. Marsh, Secretary; Mr. George D. 
Elderkin, Treasurer; and Mr. W. E. Black- 
stone, Chairman of the Executive Committee. 
By the aid of Judge 0. H. Horton, a charter 
was secured, and the full name of the institu- 
tion, ''The Chicago Training School for City, 
Home, and Foreign Missions," was adopted. 
Mr. Meyer was again elected Superintendent, 
and Mrs. Meyer, Principal of the School. An 



54 THE BUILDERS 

enthusiastic effort was made at this meeting to 
make provision for a salary for the superintend- 
ent and principal, but both Mr. and Mrs. Meyer 
pleaded that the work was not in any condition 
to pay salaries, and begged that no attempt be 
made to raise money for any purpose except the 
new building. 

About seven thousand dollars had been prom- 
ised more or less definitely toward this purpose. 
The Nickel Fund was also bringing in returns, 
but slowly, and evidently not more than two or 
three thousand dollars could be depended upon 
from this source. They had no large amount in 
hand, and were still owing a thousand dollars 
on the lot — the last thousand dollars pledged for 
that purpose not being yet raised — and yet they 
were facing the erection of a building that was 
to cost $16,000. Mr. and Mrs. Meyer, with un- 
bounded faith and enthusiasm, pressed their 
plans eagerly. Looking backward after an ex- 
perience of twenty-five years, Mr. Meyer admits 
that they **had no sense of proportion, just en- 
thusiasm." But the Board, with a greater sense 
of the responsibility to be incurred, counseled 
caution. At a meeting where the entire ground 
had been gone over, after mature deliberation, 
the Board decided not to sign the contract for 
the building until some considerable gift of 
cash in hand seemed to give them a warrant for 
so doing. Mr, and Mrs. Meyer, seeing the spring 
and summer slipping away, and each day seem- 



BEGINNINGS 55 

ing to p\it the possible opening of the School 
in the fall farther and farther away, went to 
their little flat in Lake View sore at heart. 
Opening the mail that had been left by the post- 
man during the day they found a letter con- 
taining a check for one thousand dollars for the 
new building. Once more the timely gift seemed 
'*a deliverance.'' Without waiting even to eat 
their supper they returned to the city, took the 
car for Oak Park and called on the treasurer, 
Mr. Elderkin, with the good news. A meeting 
was called for the next day, the contract waa 
let, and building operations immediately begun. 

The donor of the gift which turned the waver- 
ing scale at this critical time was Miss Petruella 
Johnson, a young Chicago woman of wealth and 
rare character. She had before expressed her 
intention of some time making a substantial of- 
fering for the proposed building, but in the 
letter accompanying the check she stated simply 
that she felt impressed that she ought to send 
it at once. 

In addition to this gift. Dr. Parkhurst, Mr. 
Elderkin, Mr. Hobbs and Mr. William Deering 
pledged one thousand dollars each, and this with 
the small sums accruing from the Nickel Fund 
and other resources kept the architectural ball 
rolling through the summer. But with the best 
effort that could be made the burden seemed a 
tremendous one. 



UNFOLDINGS 



READY. 

I am ready to come. — 2 Cor. 12:14. 

I am ready not to be bound only; but also to die 
for the name of the Lord Jesus. — Acts 21:13. 

"Ready!" Ready! It rings down through the ages. 
Preaching was needed and Paul was ready. Danger 
was to be faced *'for the name of the Lord Jesus." 
It might be bonds, it might be a horrible death, and 
he gently loosened the loving hands that would hold 
him back and sprang to meet it. The sword of mar- 
tyrdom flashed across his track but he flinched not. 
Even for that supreme moment he was "ready." 

Oh that little word "Ready!" It blows across our 
spirits like a salt breeze from the ocean. It cuts into 
our hearts like a two-edged sword. Ready! Have 
we been always ready when God wanted us? No, no, 
no, we have not. God forgive us! We have missed 
opportunities; we have missed souls. But are we 
ready now? 

I have surplus money — money in bank or stocks 
that I do not need, shall never need. Am I ready to 
give it for the world's need? I have a voice to sing 
for God, social influence that might be turned even 
more to work for Him, time that I might save for 
Him from my little knick-knacks and uselessness — 
am I ready? What holds me back? Love of home 
and ease? A dread of doing some strange thing? 
Bonds of habit — soft living in familiar grooves? 
There are enough of God's professed children in the 
world to fill every vacant place, do every bit of Hi3 
work. Am I ready to do my part — all my part? — 
Lucy Rider Meyer. 



III. 

UNFOLDINGS. 

It was a summer of eager effort and of vexa- 
tious, unavoidable delays. The labor disturb- 
ances of the year culminated in the month of 
May in the Haymarket riots, and it was weeks 
before building operations in the city resumed 
their normal tone. This greatly delayed the 
work on the Training School building at a time 
when every delay was momentous. 

July came before the first spade was put into 
the ground; but once begun, the work was 
pushed forward with all possible energy. Exca- 
vations for the basement were scarcely under 
way when an accident occurred that just es- 
caped being a catastrophe. A broken bit of old 
fence had been standing across the rear end of 
the lot, along the alley. A dozen children of the 
neighborhood had gathered on this fence to 
watch the workmen as they spaded up the earth 
and loaded it into the wagons to be drawn away. 
Suddenly the fence gave way and all were pre- 
cipitated into the cellar. A cloud of dust arose, 
through which could be discerned sm.all legs 
and arms frantically waving, while shrieks rent 
the air. The workmen hastened to the rescue 
and one by one the children were extricated and 

59 



60 THE BUILDERS 

set upon their feet. At the very bottom lay a 
small form, quite limp and motionless. Care- 
fully the workman grasped him by the legs and 
drew him out from the pile of debris, rolled him 
over, and finding him apparently sound in 
every limb, stood him on his feet. The child, 
who had been literally scared out of his senses, 
gasped and opened his eyes, apparently sur- 
prised to find himself alive. The man assisted 
the process of recovery by taking him vigorous- 
ly by the shoulders and turning his face toward 
home with the injunction: **Be Jude, an' I want 
ye to go out o' here now, an' stay out!" — an 
admonition which the child seemed eager to obey, 
disappearing as fast as a pair of very active 
little legs would carry him. 

As the walls went up a new difficulty arose 
regarding the corner tower which, according to 
the architect's plan, projected a foot and a half 
over the sidewalk. This the city authorities 
would not allow. Again there were conferences 
with committees and architect and officials. Fin- 
ally the projecting wall was torn down, the 
tower supported on an iron pillar reaching to 
the second story, all parties were satisfied, and 
the work went on once more. 

In August Mrs. Meyer went east to attend 
missionary conventions and talk for the School 
as she had opportunity. She visited Ocean 
Grove, and attended an International Mission- 
ary Convention at the Thousand Islands, in 



UNFOLDINGS 61 

which place she was greatly cheered by the cor- 
dial indorsement and approval of about fifty re- 
turned missionaries assembled there. She re- 
ceived a hearty welcome also from the conserva- 
tive New England people, and at Clifton 
Springs, New York. As she remarks, she had 
at that time but little history to draw upon, 
but she revelled in prophecy, reinforcing her 
appeals with a tiny piece of sandstone which 
Mr. Meyer had sent her, chipped from the walls, 
to assure her that there '^really were walls." 

It became clear that the building would not 
be ready for the School to open in September. 
The corner stone was laid September 13. Beside 
the brief speeches made by friends of the School 
on this occasion, Bishop Foster was present and 
made the principal address. Like the other 
speakers the good bishop ** revelled in proph- 
ecy," and in one of his daring flights of imagi- 
nation he said: *^It is not impossible that in a 
few years you may be sending out scores of 
workers." Could the good Bishop's prophetic 
eye have looked down a lapse of only twenty-five 
years he might have safely said, not *' scores" 
but ** hundreds." Not to mention the workers 
in the home fields, numbering more than a thou- 
sand, the missionaries sent out by the School into 
foreign fields, as reported at the International 
Student Volunteers Convention of 1910 as being 
two hundred and thirty-three. At this time the 
day set for the opening was October 14. But 



62 THE BUILDERS 

the frost had come before the last red briek was 

set into the walls, and still the inside work re- 
mained to be done. Letters were again sent to 
the waiting pupils announcing that the School 
would open in November; but the first of De- 
cember came and the house was still unfinished. 
Then the impatience of the leaders would brook 
no farther delay, and the students were notified 
that they would be received without fail on 
December eighth. The eighth came, and also the 
students. There was not a knob or a lock on 
any of the doors and much painting and finish- 
ing remained to be done. The trustees had en- 
tertained grave fears as to the condition of the 
new plastering, but from the night of the fifth 
Mr. Meyer had slept in the building to demon- 
strate that it could safely be done. Shavings 
and plaster were carried out, floors swept, fur- 
niture unpacked, and rooms made ready as fast 
as possible. But when the first dinner wa^ 
served to the incoming family, history records 
that they were given canned soup and no spoons ! 
Evidently in the confusion some one had blun- 
dered. The records fail at this point, and pos- 
terity will never know just how that meal of 
soup was appropriated. They were possessed 
of more resources than the stork in the fable, 
however, and there are more ways of eating soup 
than the conventional one. 

Naturally the furniture of the small house 
on Park Avenue could not meet the require- 



UNFOLDINGS 63 

ments of the larger building, and emergencies 
had to be met from day to day. One day, Mrs. 
Dickinson, a serene-faced assistant, appeared in 
the office looking troubled. The last new stu- 
dent had just arrived and there was only a bare, 
empty room for her. *^Give her a seat in the 
parlor, and we'll see what can be done," said 
the man of expedients, with unruffled benignity, 
as he set about to evolve some possible or im- 
possible policy of expansion. In the midst of 
his efforts the door bell rang and an expressman 
asked to see the head of the establishment. He 
came from **Mrs. Brown," he said, who was 
moving and had sent over for the use of the 
School furniture for two rooms for which she 
had no use in her new quarters. 

School opened, but under difficulties. Paint- 
ers, calsominers and plumbers struggled for 
possession with teachers and lecturers. The 
sound of saw and hammer mingled with song and 
prayer, and odors of fresh paint and plaster 
were more tangible than the odor of sanctity. 
One day the class was studying about heaven 
when the voice of the teacher was suddenly 
drowned by a terrific outburst of hammering 
from the next room. One of the students mur- 
mured piously: ''I hope the heavenly mansions 
will be finished before we get there." With all 
their piety there was never among the students 
any unnatural solemnity, nor any lack of healthy 
appreciation of a funny circumstance. 



64 THE BUILDERS 

The workmen, especially the younger ones, 
were naturally interested in the young life of 
the place; and, as they went about their work, 
occupied their eyes in observing, and their minds 
in guessing what manner of institution this 
might be. One, following with his eyes a young 
woman through the hall, opened the wrong door 
and fell with his can of paint into the basement. 
Fortunately it was not far, but it was a very 
sheepish looking young man who came up, drip- 
ping with paint, to explain how it all happened. 

The abbreviated name, *^ Training School," 
failed to convey to the uninitiated any idea of 
the purpose or nature of the institution. To 
some it suggested a school for teaching horse- 
back riding, which was very fashionable at the 
time. One day a woman called on Mr. Meyer 
to see about the disposal of some horses which 
she had for sale. Another inquiring for what 
purpose the house was being built and receiving 
the answer, *^For a Training School,'' ex- 
claimed, measuring with her eye the high, nar- 
row building, * * Training School ! How will they 
ever get horses up there ! ' ' 

But day by day the confusion of building 
subsided, and gradually the School settled into 
its accustomed routine of work and study. The 
formal dedication of the building was arranged 
for February 17. This function was in happy 
contrast to those that marked the opening of the 
institution the previous year, even though the 







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UNFOLDINGS 65 

weather again took a hand in making the occa- 
Bion memorable. A bright and beautiful morn- 
ing sky soon shrouded itself in clouds which 
during the remainder of the day poured down 
a drenching rain, culminating in the evening in 
a terrific thunder storm. Notv/ithstanding, the 
records show a company of not less than two 
hundred served with luncheon at the School. The 
class room was filled at the consecration service 
of the morning ; and, for the afternoon meeting^ 
that, the adjoining rooms, and the hall, were 
packed to the limit of their capacity, even stand- 
ing room being at a premium. Mrs. Hitt, of the 
Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, presided 
at this meeting, which was addressed, among 
other speakers, by Rev. C. G. Truesdell on City 
Missions, ]\Irs. J. M. Thoburn on Foreign Mis- 
sions, and Mrs. McCabe on the subject of Home 
Missions. The evening gathering, promising to 
be far too large for the capacity of the School 
building, the service was held at Grace Church, 
where the audience listened to an illuminating 
address by Doctor Thoburn, recently from Cal- 
cutta. He declared he had never addressed so 
inspiring an audience on such a stormy evening. 
There had been an address by Dr. Danforth in 
the afternoon, which was remarkable for its 
prophetic setting forth of the need of medical 
work and nursing among the sick and poor of 
the city. Several hundred dollars were raised 
at this anniversary for the debt on the building, 



66 THE BUILDERS 

though about four thousand still remained. 
Nevertheless it was clear to the most uninter- 
ested observers that the Training School had 
come to its own. 

About this time a notable article appeared in 
Northwestern Christian Advocate written by- 
Rev. J. C. Jackson. After a brief description of 
Kaiserswerth in Germany with the deaconess 
work growing out of it, and a suggestive allu- 
sion to the deplorable conditions existing in our 
own great cities calling for similar missionary 
effort, he went on to describe in detail a recent 
visit to the Chicago Training School. He noted 
the plan of work, the courses of study, the char- 
acters of the students, etc., and closed with the 
following : 

We predict that this is the germ of a great suc- 
cess and that Uke the Prussian Kaiserswerth its 
influence will pervade the land. 

This and like institutions are to solve the problem 
of saving our land from worse than heathenism. . . . 
Why should we not have here a true Protestant sister- 
hood, devoted to works of faith and love, embodying 
the best features, while avoiding the errors and ex- 
cesses of conventual systems? Long live this 
American Kaiserswerth, and may it increase a thou- 
sand fold through the friends who shall be raised up 
to give it a helping hand. 

In this and in other ways the finger of des- 
tiny, which to Christian thought is no other than 
the hand of Providence, was already pointing the 
path these leaders were to follow. 



UNFOLDINGS 67 

The air was full of prophecy during the clos- 
ing months of this year. Here were forty young 
women looking forward to Christian service, 
and day by day new and unexpected calls came 
from fields of need and opportunity, nearby, as 
well as far away. As yet the ecclesiastical ma- 
chinery was lacking which should take these dy- 
namic forces and make them available. Into 
what form conditions would crystallize was still 
an open question, but the ansvv^er was not far 
away. Unconsciously the students themselves 
were helping to solve the question. The atmos- 
phere of the School was vivid with missionary 
fervor. Two afternoons a week and on Sundays 
they went out, Bible in hand, in the exalted 
spirit of primitive Christianity. For som^etimes 
it requires as much heroism to defy convention- 
alities and to face scorn and rebuff as to faee 
physical danger. Naturally the experience of 
these adventurers into conditions, new and 
strange, produced a deep impression upon their 
minds, already sensitized by the work of the 
class and lecture room. Look at this picture 
from the life of these students. 

It is six o'clock of a Friday evening. The long 
dining table is nearly surrounded by students, 
but a vacant chair here and there tells that some 
straggler has not yet returned. Friday is ** field 
day" and the students have been scattered hither 
and yon over the city ; going out in the Master 'a 
name to sow such seeds of good as soil and cir- 
cumstance might permit. 



68 THE BUILDERS 

But what a chatter of eager voices, drowning 
even the clatter of knives and forks and the 
footsteps of the student waiters as they glide to 
and fro. Can there be any listeners amid all 
this confusion of tongues, or any coherence in 
the broken fragments of talk that besiege the 
ear from all directions? Yet listen closely, and 
if you can catch a single thread from the tangle 
of voices and follow it for a while, you may get 
many a glimpse of tragedy or comedy, with ita 
dash of pathos or fun. 

One student wears a pink carnation pinned 
to her simple gray dress. She is rallied on her 
extravagance in wearing hot house flowers in 
winter, and replies: **It was given me by a 
poor sick woman that I visited today. Some one 
had brought her a tiny bouquet, and she was 
so grateful for my call that she insisted upon 
dividing her one treasure with me. I refused it 
until I saw I was really grieving her by doing 
so. Isn't it sweet?" 

Just here a voice from the opposite side of 
the table attracts attention, and as it goes on 
a little hush spreads through the company. A 
girl is saying: '^I had just crossed the bridge as 
he came up Water Street where all that delicious 
fruit is displayed along the sidewalk. His 
clothes were dreadfully shabby but showed that 
they had been nice once, and they fitted him like 
a gentleman 's. But, oh ! such a face ! I met his 
eyes an instant as he passed, and such a pitiful. 



UNFOLDINGS 69 

hungry, desperate look I never saw in all my 
life. It has haunted me ever since. And — do 
you know, girls — I had a great nice sandwich 
in my bag for my own lunch; I thought of it 
in an instant and wanted to give it to him and 
tell him my mission. But I didn't quite dare, 
so I stood there watching him and thinking 
whether I would or wouldn't until it was too 
late. He was almost staggering, but he waa 
not drunk — ^he didn't look that way; and as he 
came to a garbage barrel he stopped and looked 
in. I know he was starving, and there I just 
stood with that sandwich in my hand and I 
didn't dare to run and give it to him. I shall see 
that awful look as long as I live. Oh, dear! 
Why didn't I go?" The voice breaks off sud- 
denly and for a moment a depressing silence 
reigns. 

Presently some one remarks dubiously: '^May- 
be you will see him again, or perhaps he has 
already found other friends." But it is a poor 
attempt at consolation, there seeming to be a 
general impression that benevolently disposed 
persons with sandwiches to give away do not 
congregate on every street corner. 

But the silence does not last long. *^ Speaking 
of sandwiches," begins another, '* reminds me 
of a queer place I got into this afternoon. It 
was away up at the top of one of those dingy 
old tenements on Sherman Street. The close 
little room seemed full of men and women and 



70 THE BUILDERS 

children — they were Russian Jews, I should 
think, from their dark skins and flashing black 
eyes — and to everything I said they could only 
reply, ^ Yes, yes — Russi. ' 

''The center of intere^it was an old, wrinkled 
woman dowTi on her knees with a moulding 
board on the floor in front of her. I don't think 
there was a table in the room. She was knead- 
ing and rolling out a kind of dough. When she 
had it just to suit her she would take it up 
in her hands like this'' — and the narrator tossea 
her hands with a swift, indescribable motion. 
*'How she did manipulate that dough! When 
she had worked it out very thin she flopped 
it on top of a dirty old stove, turned it, and 
then flopped it into a great dishpan nearly 
full of similar ones where it was immediately 
covered up with an old cloth — not white, by 
any means. I thought they might be making 
unleavened bread, and asked them, but of course 
they did not understand me, and only nodded 
and smiled and said, 'Yes; yes; Russi!' They 
seemed so friendly and pleased with my interest. 
A little girl came up and took a piece of dough 
and showed me how to do it, too. I wanted to 
bring a piece of dough home, and offered them 
money for it; but the old woman threw up her 
hands and shook her head, and laughed and 
jabbered. But she put one of the cakes into 
my hand, and made me understand that I was 
heartily welcome. And they were surely very 



XJNFOLDINGS 71 

poor. I have it in my room now, girls, and if 
you want to taste it" — But she gets no further, 
for they all with one mind but many voices 
protest that they are quite satisfied with her 
description without trjnng its flavor. 

**Such an odd thing happened this after- 
noon" — it is a soft voice over to the right drop- 
ping into the current of conversation. '^Mis9 
Bell and I were waiting in one of those big 
department stores. You know it is about as 
much of a task to buy a ball of tape and get 
your change as to get a bill through Congress. 
While we waited we were watching one of the 
shop girls — " 

*' Sales ladies," corrects her nearest neighbor. 

*' Thank you; a sales lady. She was showing 
gloves to one of those awfully trying customers 
who are bent on turning over everything in the 
store. She found fault with the style, the shade, 
the price and the fit, and I don't believe she 
had any intention of buying at the beginning. 
The poor girl was very patient, though, and 
brought out box after box only to have them 
criticised and pushed aside. She looked pale 
and tired. We did feel sorry for her, and as 
she chanced to look at us we gave her a little 
smile of sympathy and good will. She bright- 
ened up a little and a moment after as she came 
near to get another box of gloves she hesitated, 
then said in a low tone: 'Pray for me, wont 
you? I do need the prayers of good people!* 



72 THE BUILDERS 

Wasn't it strange that she Imew we were Chris- 
tians and that we were feeling sorry for her?" 

Some one dovv^n at the end of the table is 
giving a lively account of her experience at the 
Italian mission, when at the tinkle of a little 
bell a sudden silence falls. A young woman 
comes forward with a bundle of newspapers and 
gives a brief resume of the news of the day. 
As she takes her seat a voice like a thread of 
silver begins singing, ** Nearer my God, to 
Thee.'' Scores of voices take up the strain, 
and as the last notes die away all heads are 
reverently bowed, and one after another leads 
in a brief prayer. Another soft tinkle of the 
bell^ — so soft it seems to blend with, rather than 
to break, the hush of prayers. Chairs are pushed 
back, and the chatter of voices breaks out again. 
It fills the room, penetrates the hall, ascends the 
stairs, grows fainter as the speakers separate 
more and more, and at last dies away. 

Often the field work of the students unearthed 
conditions of shocking need, or emergencies that 
made them ask themselves: "What would have 
happened if we had not been there ? What will 
they do when we are gone? 

One night after the family were all at rest 
the door bell rang loudly. Some one, roused 
from sleep, opened the door. A little fellow 
scarcely ten years old asked to see Mr. Meyer, 
and was directed to his room on the second floor. 
A vigorous knock brought Mr. Meyer to the 



UNFOLDINGS 73 

door. There stood the child in the dim hall 
light, a frail little figure with a pale face and 
a man's look of responsibility upon it. He 
hesitated at first, at a loss how to begin, but 
w^ent bravely on. 

''There's a lady by us one time — an' she gives 
my mother this card an' says if there was any- 
thing ever happened or we got in any troubles 
we was to come to this place an' ask for Mr. 
Meyer. An' — mother's dead an' — an' I've 
come!" And he looked up into the tall man's 
face with an absoluteness of confidence that 
dreamed not of denial. 

He would not even wait for a moment. *' Sis- 
ter Mina was all alone," he explained. But 
they followed him to the address given, and 
there with the two little watchers of seven and 
ten was the cold form of the dead mother. She 
had breathed her last in the basement room, 
poor, uncared-for, and alone. The only hold 
she had had upon human sympathy and help- 
fulness was that chance call of a Christian 
worker, and to that slender hope she had com- 
mitted her little ones in her last hour. But, 
they thought, if there had been a real mission- 
ary instead of only a student worker, she might 
not have gone out of life, unfriended and alone. 

''Who will take my class of mission boys 
when I am gone?" demanded of Mrs. Meyer 
a student under appointment for India. 

"There is no one to send," was the sad reply. 
"Every girl has her hands already full." 



74 THE BUILDERS 

*'But there must be some one. I gathered 
those boys in off the street. They have no 
one but their teacher to help them to be good* 
If they are left to themselves they will soon b^ 
back as bad as ever. There must surely be some 
one.'' But Mrs. Meyer could only reply sadly, 
''There is no one." 

So, day by day, the conviction was forcing 
itself upon the entire School that, as the city 
field was opening and workers were in prep- 
aration, there must be some organized machin- 
ery to set these forces at work. In the class 
room they studied about Phoebe and the early 
church deaconesses. Leaders of thought in mis- 
sionary and evangelistic lines were talking of 
the modern work of deaconesses in Germany 
and throughout Europe and Asia, and somehow, 
as they went to and fro to their church work 
and their mission fields, students and teachers 
began to whisper among themselves, ** Deacon- 
esses. ' ' 

This was the situation when the time for the 
second commencement approached. There was 
now a graduating class of fifteen members, 
though only twelve were present to receive 
diplomas. Two, Susan Collins and Lydia Trim- 
ble, had already started for their work in Af- 
rica, and another, "Wilma Burton, had answered 
an urgent call to Utah. 

The students' prayer meetings had Ibiecome 
one of the marked features of school life. In 



tJNFOLDINGS 75 

these heart-to-heart conferences teachers and 
students came closer together than on, other 
occasions. It was at the close of the last meet- 
ing of the year that Mr. Meyer announced that 
he had something of special interest to tell 
them. All were alert, for vague plans born of 
their hopes and fears had been floating in the 
air for months. Mr. Meyer announced that the 
Executive Committee of the School had decided 
to give the use of the building during the 
months of the summer vacation for the working 
out of a plan which was simply this : That such 
students as wished might remain and give their 
entire time to mission work in the city. No 
salary could be offered, nor remuneration of 
any kind — merely the shelter of the Training 
School, a field to work in, and ''such food as 
the Lord, through his servants, might send.'' 
On these terms he and Mrs. Meyer would take 
all who wished to remain through the summer. 

**We left the room,'' writes one of the stu- 
dents, ''and gathered in little groups in the 
halls discussing the question whether we had 
faith enough to trust the Lord to feed us aa 
he did Elijah. To tell the truth, some of us 
had grave doubts as to whether the particular 
kind of raven that fed Elijah had not become 
extinct. ' ' 

Then came the day of Commencement, June 
14. Bishop Thobum — not "Bishop" then, how- 
ever, only "Doctor" — made one of his stirring 



76 THE BUILDERS 

addresses. The burden of his soul was the work 
in India, and the need of some sort of a sister- 
hood for work there. Then followed Prof. 
Charles F. Bradley of Evanston. His address, 
which was widely published in the church 
papers, was memorable for its bold and unmis- 
takable championship of a recognized order 
of workers — a uniformed Sisterhood under 
the direction of the Church — to take up the 
burden of caring for the sick, the poor and 
the neglected classes of the city population. 
There was no uncertain sound to words like 
the following: 

For some of this class "Commencement*' means the 
commencement of work in the foreign missionary 
field. . . . Others are to enter the home mission 
work. For both of these classes the work is definitely- 
arranged. Behind them is a Society of earnest Chris- 
tian women, directing their work and supporting them 
in it. But some feel their hearts drawn out to mis- 
sion work in the great cities, and of them, and the 
possibilities before the Church in connection with 
their work, I desire especially to speak. 

What door is open before them? Who is to com- 
mission them? Who will direct their labors? To 
whom will they be responsible? What treasury is 
behind them? 

Do we not need them? The homes of ignorance 
and misery in this great city, the thousands that are 
sick, the children that swarm the street, do they not 
need the care and tenderness, the love and sympathy 
of Christian womanhood? As I think upon this mat- 
ter I confess that I am pained that so little is being 
done. Here and there, it is true, a single church 



UNFOLDINGS 77 

employs a lady missionary, and people look at her as 
eome sort of a curiosity. They wonder what is done 
with her, and how she is related to the church. 
There is positively no chance for any considerable 
number of women to enter mission work in our cities. 
When I think of it I am amazed — amazed in view of 
our great need, and in view of the number who would 
gladly enter the work if it were only arranged for 
them. 

Now, what do we need? Most of you will say at 
once that their first need is a home, and support. 
Just such a home as is offered them in the new 
department contemplated in the Training School. 
There is much to be said in favor of a home where 
they will be together. It is more economical. Then 
they will have each other's sympathy, and the older 
will encourage the younger. 

Then they must have support if they give their 
whole time to the work. But it is a good investment 
for the Church aud for Christ to put money into the 
work of Christian women. 

Moreover, they need direction. They cannot do 
this great work alone, single-handed. They must be 
put in systematic relation to our churches and 
pastors. I fear for the permanency of those Chris- 
tian efforts that are not connected with our churches. 
... In some way the work must be thoroughly organ- 
ized. This is our great present need. 

And as a help to their work I believe that it would 
be well for these workers to have a distinctive dress. 
Some may cry out that this is Romish, but it is an 
interesting historical fact that the first sisterhood — 
in modern times, I mean — was Protestant. It was 
organized seventy years before St. Vincent de Paul 
established the order of the sisters of charity. But 
even if this were not so, if a distinctive dress is a 
good thing, need w^e reject it simply because it has 



78 THE BUILDERS 

been used in the Romish Church? It has been a 
good thing for them. Their sisters of mercy go 
everywhere, and their dress protects them. The 
time may come when the devoted workers of the 
Methodist Church will be equally well known on the 
streets of Chicago, and equally safe. A distinctive 
dress would not only secure them from violence and 
insult, but would economize time and money, and 
serve as an introduction in the work of visitation. 
Of course, no vows need go with it. All should be 
free and voluntary. 

Now, what shall we call the members of this free 
and voluntary sisterhood? Why not Deaconesses? 
The title and the order for which it stands are prob- 
ably scriptural. Eminent critics take this view. 

Here followed a review of the classical allu- 
sions to the order of deaconesses of the early- 
Church, the scriptural references to the order 
and the modern work of the Kaiserswerth dea- 
conesses in Europe. In conclusion the speaker 
said: 

"Wliy is not the work of our sisters whom the 
Lord has manifestly called into his service in some 
way recognized and organized by the Church? We 
are behind the age. The times are getting beyond 
us in this regard. . . . The time seems ripe for a 
forward movement. Many minds are turning in 
this direction. I have been surprised at the approval 
which it meets at once from thoughtful and con- 
servative men. ... A few hundreds or thousands of 
dollars invested in this proposed deaconess home 
now will mean a great deal in a little while. This is 
the present opportunity for our Church and for us 
all. I tell you, we need this deaconess home, and 
It is coming. God help us to see our opportunity 



UNFOLDINGS - 79 

and to do all we can to help it on. If we — if the 
Church — only has the courage to go forward we shall 
be blessed and abundantly rewarded for our sacri- 
fice and labor. 

The Message — the ever risiDg thermometer of 
the entire work — ^had in its current issue almost 
the first words ever printed concerning a definite 
deaconess work in the Methodist Episcopal 
church of ilmerica. We give it entire. 

The opportunities for work in a large city are 
often better in summer than in winter. This fact, 
together with the desire we have that our building, 
which would otherwise be nearly vacant for months, 
may be used for the advancement of the Kingdom, 
has determined us upon opening a Deaconess Home 
during the summer months. 

Into this Home we purpose to receive such ladies 
as shall be approved, and for whom we can find 
suitable openings, who wish to devote their time 
to city missionary work. 

There will be no salary, but we promise them a 
home, such board as the Lord may provide, and the 
payment of necessary car fare. 

Workers in the Home are at entire liberty to 
leave at any time without warning, but while with us 
must obey the rules of the Home, and submit to the 
decisions of those in authority. 

We believe this thought of a headquarters for 
lady missionaries and an organization of their work 
may be a seed with a life germ in it, which shall 
grow. It is very small, but so was the mustard 
seed. We will plant it, and wait for the showers 
from heaven and the shining of the sun. 

Clearly the Rubicon was crossed, and there 
was nothing left for the little pioneer band but 



80 THE BUILDERS 

to go forward. The movement which is now 
generally accepted as a matter-of-course, was 
at that time little short of revolutionary. Out- 
side the small inner circle of the friends, officers 
and patrons of the School it had little recogni- 
tion and less sympathy. It required courage, 
faith, and initiative — most of all the certainty 
of a divine commission — to go ahead ma^rking 
out new and untried w^ays for coming feet. But 
these were possessed in full measure by the lead- 
ers of the movement, and their faith has been 
justified by history. Nine students responded 
to the call and remained. An average of eight 
worked in the *^Home" during the entire sea- 
son. The summer was intensely hot, the hottest 
it was said that Chicago had known for twenty 
years. But through shimmering heat and dust 
they went out day after day to their duties. — 
only one day during the entire summer finding 
the weather too much for strength. They 
visited homes that had not felt any touch of 
Christian influence for years. They coaxed the 
neglected children into Sunday school or mis- 
sion, they prayed with tired and heart-sick 
mothers in their homes, and ministered to the 
sick and dying. Experiences that necessarily 
grew commonplace in later years touched their 
unaccustomed hearts to exquisite pain or joy. 
And, mingling with all the tragedy and pathos, 
were the quaint and queer people and the gro- 
tesque things that sometimes give a dash of 



UNFOLDINGS 81 

humor to the saddest situations. One young 
'* deaconess'' finding a poor foreign woman sick 
in bed and her husband awkwardly trying to 
care for her — at the imminent risk of starvation 
through the loss of his meager wages — ^took his 
place at the bedside and sent him back to hia 
work. She remained at her post for a week 
until the woman was able to be around again. 
The poor man had watched her in growing be- 
wilderment from day to day and at last burst 
out, *^For what do you do this? I told you 
first I ben too poor. I nottings can to pay. 
How iss?" As well as she could she explained 
that she belonged to a band that was glad to 
do such kindnesses. ^'For Jesus' Sake." The 
man listened, and finally nodded comprehend- 
ingly. **Ah, yes, yes. I read one long time 
before 'bout some 'postles. You ben that sort." 

The summer days drew to a close, and the 
time came again to open the School. All the 
real needs of the little band had been met, and 
the treasury showed a balance of $6.55. Evi- 
dently 'Hhe raven species" was not quite 
extinct. 

It was thought at first that the School building 
could continue to offer shelter to the deaconesses, 
at least for several months, but the influx of 
students filled the building, and it became evi- 
dent that .some other arrangements must be 
made or the infant enterprise given up. The 
band of devoted men and women who had aided 



82 THE BUILDERS 

so nobly two years before in launching the 
school, now watched with growing interest this 
new and unexpected development of their work. 
Carefully they computed the additional cost — 
rent for a separate building, board and clothing 
for the workers, should the work become perma- 
nent. The estimated sum, one hundred dollars 
a month in all, seemed a serious responsibility 
at that time, but as they asked one another, 
''Dare we go on?" it was only to be met with 
the still harder question, in view of the possi- 
bilities opening up before them, ''Dare we do 
anything else but go on?" At an executive 
meeting of the Board it was voted on motion 
of Mr. Blackstone to "carry forward the work 
so long as the Lord sends us means to do so." 
At this meeting also a separate committee was 
formed and the "Chicago Deaconess Home" 
really organized and started in June, 1887, a 
memorable date, now occupied its own separate 
building. 

It was not so tremendous a responsibility after 
all, just at first, for the summer family was 
greatly diminished at the opening of the School. 
Several of the workers re-entered the School to 
finish their course and some were called to dis^ 
tant fields of labor and so it happened that 
when arrangements were finally made and a 
fiat rented for their use but two of the original 
family was left to take possession. One of these 
two was Isabelle Eeeves, who from that time to 



UNFOLDINGS 83 

this has been in ^ labors abundant/' and who 
is at present the honored head of the Methodist 
Old People's Home in Chicago. The other, after 
a few years of successful work, became the wife 
of a distinguished missionary and continued her 
labors as Mrs. May Hilton Hoover in South 
America. 

The first ^* Deaconess Home" consisted of an 
eight room flat at 17 W. Erie St., about two 
blocks from the Training School. A little fur- 
niture — a stove, bed, lounge, four chairs, and 
a lamp — ^was hastily collected, and Mr. Meyer 
and a strong-armed young assistant carried 
most of it over by hand. The two girls, faith- 
ful yet half afraid, had come to take possession 
of their rooms. It was already growing dark 
and they knelt all together in the little bare 
dining room and dedicated themselves, the new 
Home, and all the future to God. Then the 
men returned and the girls were left alone. The 
dark, empty rooms had not yet been permeated 
by the *'home feeling" and seemed dismally 
strange and cold. The wind made weird sounds ; 
the floors creaked ; the shutters rattled ; the win- 
dows shook. They lay do^vn and tried to sleep ; 
but, startled by some specially terrifying noise, 
they rose and again committed themselves to 
the care of the Heavenly Father, and at last 
forgot their fears in slumber. 

The little family was soon reinforced. One of 
the next arrivals was Mary Jefferson who, after 



84 THE BUILDERS 

occupying various positions of responsibility 
and usefulness, is now the loved superintendent 
of the Agard Rest Home in Lake Bluff. When 
the family numbered four the cheerful news 
was communicated to them that Isabella Tho- 
burn, who was spending some time in this coun- 
try for the sake of her health, had consented to 
come to them for the winter as ''house mother.'' 
And yet her arrival was somewhat disconcerting. 
It was one night in November, long after they 
had retired, that they were aroused by a loud and 
insistent knocking. With beating hearts they in- 
quired tremulously, ''Who's there?" and heard 
in a sweet, womanly voice, "It's I, Miss Tho- 
burn." Gladly the door was thrown open and 
the weary traveler made welcome. How hap- 
pily after that the load of care slipped from 
young shoulders, as with gentle strength and 
womanly wisdom Miss Thoburn took her place as 
head of the little household. Other helpers soon 
came whose names in the years that followed be- 
came beautifully familiar in deaconess and mis- 
sionary circles, until the family numbered a 
round dozen and it was impossible to receive any 
more in their narrow quarters. 

Again, in 1888, the closing months of the 
Training School year brought with them new 
crises around which centered interest and effort. 
Again the leaders were confronted with the 
problem of enlargement to meet the demand of 
the rapidly growing work. The deaconess fam- 



UNFOLDINGS 85 

ily had ceased to grow for want of room, while 
the Training School building which had seemed 
so inordinately large but a year and a half 
before, was taxed to meet the demands upon it 
— the annual report of the School showing an 
enrollment for the year of one hundred and six, 
with a graduating class of twenty-two. A three 
story residence building adjoining the School 
was for sale at twelve thousand dollars, and 
they began to cast longing eyes at this building. 
For weeks this property was fairly invested with 
a prophetic atmosphere of faith and desire. Mrs. 
Meyer avers that Mr. Meyer was once heard to 
pray, **0 Lord, we know you could give us the 
whole block if we needed it." They talked it 
over in the students' prayer meeting. *^I used 
to think that I should be perfectly happy if I 
lived to see the Training School building fin- 
ished,*' said Mr. Meyer, **but now it seems as 
if I never wanted anything so much as I want 
that property for our work;" and they ^^all 
laughed" but they 'Sprayed too." 

For awhile the faith of the members of the 
Board wavered. A debt of two or three thousand 
dollars still remained on the School building. 
To assume this new obligation with nothing 
whatever in sight seemed, to say the least, un- 
wise. But once more Mr. Blackstone's generous 
missionary impulses and his strong faith went 
hand in hand. He purchased the property and 
held it at the disposal of the committee. Then, 



86 THE BUILDERS 

to the surprise of every one, even her own chil- 
dren, Mrs. A. M. Smith of Oak Park made 
another splendid donation of five thousand 
dollars to be applied to this purpose. This 
opportune gift decided the committee in favor 
of purchasing the property. 

But according to the lease, to which the sale 
was subject, the Training School Society could 
not have possession for a year, and there still 
remained the question of room for immediate 
needs. This was solved by obtaining permission 
to erect upon the back yard of the new property 
an ''L" connecting with the rear of the Train- 
ing School building. Immediately after the close 
of School, work was begun on this ^* annex" and 
proceeded without accident or delay, so that 
twelve additional rooms were ready for occu- 
pancy at the opening of the new school year. 

The second crisis was of even more far-reach- 
ing import. The problem of an organized 
'^ Sisterhood" of missionary workers for the city 
field was being practically solved, so far as the 
inner circle reached by the School and its influ- 
ence was concerned ; but the time was approach- 
ing when the endorsement of the Church would 
be necessary to its farther development. The 
General Conference was to convene in May, 1888, 
at New York, and the occasion was a fitting one 
for bringing the matter before the supreme 
authority of the church. It was decided to pre- 
sent to the Conference a memorial from Chicago, 



UNFOLDINGS 81 

and a special committee was appointed to pre- 
pare it. The memorial was dra^^ni up by Mr. 
Blackstone, chairman of a committee appointed 
for that purpose, and after much consultation 
and careful revision it was presented to the 
Chicago Preachers' Meeting for their approval, 
and was warmly indorsed by that body. The 
Rock River Conference had already, at their 
annual meeting several months before, passed 
hearty resolutions of commendation and sym- 
pathy. The memorial was then committed to 
the care of the conference delegates, and by 
them presented to the General Conference. 

In this effort the Training School Society did 
not stand alone. Bishop Thoburn was still in 
the country, having come from India filled with 
the idea of an order of women to supplement the 
work of the men missionaries in that country. 
He was especially desirous that such women 
should be empowered to administer the sacra- 
ments to the secluded high caste women of the 
zenanas, to whose presence no man could be 
admitted. But this especial function had to be 
given up because of the conservatism of the 
American Church on the subject. 

On his way home with his wife and sister he 
had taken the opportunity to visit the work of 
the Mildmay deaconesses in England, and was 
even more and more impressed with the pos- 
sibilities of such a recognized order in Meth- 
odism. Reaching this country and finding the 



88 THE BUILDERS 

leaders of the new missionary Training School 
Society at work upon the same problem, he was 
greatly encouraged. And so it came to pass 
that there was presented to the General Con- 
ference a memorial from the Bengal Conference 
asking recognition of an order of deaconesses. 

The action of the Conference is known to the 
Church and to the world. After the deliberation 
and discussion due to so radical a movement it 
gave its official sanction to the order, made 
some provisions for its general direction and 
control, *' Annual Conference Deaconess Boards'* 
to be created, and left details to be worked out 
as experience should dictate. 

This action was of the widest importance. It 
not only gave the order of deaconesses the 
official recognition of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church in the United States, but it served to 
bring it more widely to the notice of the people. 
Naturally there were ^'many minds" as to the 
wisdom or the unwisdom of this policy. Some 
— ^not a few — stood aghast at the introduction 
into the Church of an order of ^* Methodist 
nuns," and forecast direful consequences to the 
Church when it should have become responsible 
for a veiled sisterhood, bound by irrevocable 
vows. Others prophesied trouble from entirely 
different causes and made sarcastic conmients 
as to an invasion of ^'hen preachers." But the 
majority of broad-minded, far-seeing, earnest 
men and women both of the clergy and laymen, 



UNFOLDINGS 89 

hailed the ]\IoYement ^th approbation as one 
destined to aid the Church materially in meet- 
ing the difficult conditions confronting it in 
the dawning of a new social era. Years have 
passed with no indications of the approach of 
the disasters foretold by either class of alarm- 
ists, and it may be safely said that no movement 
during the past quarter century has met a 
warmer welcome or has captured more com- 
pletely the great heart of the Church at large. 

AYithin a year after the General Conference 
set its stamp of approval upon the work, centers 
of deaconess activity began to be established in 
various cities throughout the country, the first 
of these being the Elizabeth Gamble Deaconess 
Home and Hospital of Cincinnati which was 
opened in December, 1888. Isabella Thoburn, 
after having given a year to the development 
of the Chicago Home, was called to be its efficient 
superintendent. 

It is outside the province of this book to fol- 
low the growth of this great movement which 
has been making history for itself, except so 
far as, in its inception and early development, 
it is an integral part of the history of the 
Training School. But for the first few years 
the history of one was wrapped up in that of 
the other. Mrs. Meyer, whose example estab- 
lished the precedent which was followed in the 
matter of salary, was from the beginning the 
incarnation of the power and spirit of voluntary, 



90 THE BUILDERS 

unsalaried service. She was one of the first to 
assume the garb — ^indeed, it was under her im- 
mediate supervision that the details of the first 
costume were worked out in the months follow- 
ing the action of the General Conference — and 
she wore it consistently until, in very recent 
years, under a technical application of the gen- 
eral rules as pertaining to unmarried women, she 
has decided to lay it aside. 

For a few years Training School and Dea- 
coness Home continued to grow together under 
one management, but gradually, as the interests 
of each became more complicated and far-reach- 
ing, they developed separate Boards of Man- 
agement as the married daughter builds her 
own home and becomes independent of the 
parental roof. Still there has been and must 
continue to be the closest co-operation and inter- 
dependence. For many years it was to the 
Training School that each newly-founded dea- 
coness institution was compelled to look for 
trained workers and especially for superinten- 
dent. And on the other hand, the demand for 
deaconess workers in churches and mission fields 
gave a new and powerful impetus to the growth 
of the School. Neither could have accomplished 
its work without the other. 

Forty years before the establishment of the 
deaconess order in the Methodist Church in the 
United States, Pastor Fliedner, having seen the 
birth and development of deaconesses in the 



UNFOLDINGS 91 

Lutheran Church and its beneficent influence 
throughout Europe, looked across the ocean and 
longed to see an offshoot of the Kaiserswerth 
tree planted in the fertile soil of the great 
western continent. To this end he sent four 
^^ sisters'^ of the Kaiserswerth deaconesses to 
found a Home in Pittsburg, Pa., and followed 
the effort with earnest prayers that God would 
prosper the small beginning to the glory of His 
Kingdom. But the little plant was exotic upon 
American soil. It lived but weakly for a few 
years and then disappeared altogether. A later 
Lutheran Home established in Philadelphia has 
been successful in maintaining itself, but has 
never manifested the virility of the distinctly 
American work. But while the godly Fliedner 
was praying for the success of his deaconess 
work in America, two children were born, one 
in eastern Pennsylvania, and the other in Ver- 
mont, who were destined to fulfill his desire, 
though in a way he could not have foreseen. 
Let us believe that the good man's prayers bore 
fruit, that his mantle fell upon the shoulders 
of those who could nourish a native plant to 
vigorous growth and accomplish the work for 
which Fliedner longed and prayed. Years later 
when Mr. and Mrs. ]\Ieyer were in Europe they 
made a pilgrimage to the home of the humble 
and faithful Pastor Fliedner, and standing in 
the little ^^ garden house" which he and his 
good wife consecrated to the service of the poor 



92 THE BUILDERS 

and the lowly, they received a new impulse to 
service and renewed their consecration to the 
work to which he had devoted his life. Let ng 
not believe that any earnest prayer for the 
advancement of Christ's Kingdom goes un- 
answered; but that it has in it the germ of 
immortality, and sometime, somewhere, it will 
bring forth fruit to the glory of God. 



THE NEXT THING 



''Enlarge the place of thy tent and let them 
stretch forth the curtains of the habitations; spare 
not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes, 
for thou Shalt break forth on thy right hand and 
on thy left, and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles, 
and make the desolate cities to be inhabited." — 
Isaiah. 



IV. 
THE NEXT THING. 

The Training School celebrated its third com- 
mencement in Trinity Church. It could now 
indulge in retrospect, and looking back over 
three wonderful years of history, take heart of 
grace for the future. The speaker on this occa- 
sion was Frances Willard, whose active and out- 
spoken sympathy had been with the enterprise 
from the beginning. Isabella Thobum also 
spoke, explaining the points of difference 
between the Training School and the Deaconess 
Home, a subject at that time in need of elucida- 
tion, so new and unprecedented was the entire 
work. It is also remembered that among the 
distinguished guests of the occasion was the 
Pundita Ramabai, who sat in the seat of honor, 
her ** wistful olive face all alight'' with interest 
in the proceedings. 

Commencement, however, did not usher in a 
season of summer rest, but only opportunity for 
renewed activities along other lines. The dea- 
coness work was then a vigorous infant of a 
year old, awaiting its recognition and christen- 
ing at the hands of the General Conference. 
Naturally the action of this body was looked 
for with intense anxiety, and its favorable de- 

95 



\ 



yy 



96 THE BUILDERS 

cision hailed with rejoicing, though it brought 
new and heavy responsibilities. The problem 
of providing for the deaconess family with, 
humanly speaking, no resources save the chance 
contributions of interested friends coming in 
from day to day, might to a weaker faith have 
appeared formidable. But Mrs. Meyer's fertile 
brain was already contriving expedients, and 
her ready pen was unfolding them to the world. 

The first plan was a *^ Do- Without Band, 
and was as direct and simple as its name. It 
was thus outlined. *' There need be no meet- 
ings, there are no fees, the pledge is the most 
elastic one possible — simply to 'look about' — • 
and the principle involved is one vmich, if the 
church of God could be thoroughly permeated 
mth it, would restore to it its Apostolic purity 
and vigor." The pledge reads simply, '*I will 
look about me for opportunities to do without, 
for Jesus' sake," and the results of such self- 
denials were to be sent for the support of the 
deaconesses. It was a happy thought, the dea- 
coness herself being a living illustration of the 
possibilities of ''doing without" jewelry, fine 
clothing, many things — ^without a salary, even, 
^'for Jesus' sake." Naturally the little phrase 
became the motto of the band; and the letters 
F. J. S. wrought into a monogram in silver or 
bronze, its accepted symbol, and it has ever 
since remained the motto and badge of the dea.- 
coness order. 




J. Shelly Meyer. 




Lucy Rider Meyer. 



THE NEXT THING 97 

The Message, through whose columns 
throbbed every pulse beat of the work, did val- 
iant service; the church periodicals lent their 
aid; even the secular press found material for 
many a *^ story" for the daily paper in the do- 
ings of this new order of missionaries, especially 
in earing for the sick and destitute. Winsome 
little tracts like ''The Do-Without-Band of 
BloomtoA\Ti" and ''How there came to be Eight/' 
were sent broadcast over the country. The 
movement was popular because it was so in- 
tensely aggressive and so ' ' amazingly practical, ' ' 
and its appeal went straight to the heart of the 
common people. Men, women and children be- 
gan to do without their little luxuries and their 
pet indulgences and to send the proceeds of 
their denials to "help the deaconesses." Month 
by month the Message printed the initials of 
the list of donors heading the list with the sig- 
nificant question of the Master to his disciples: 
"When I sent you forth without purse, lacked 
ye anything?" And their answer, "Nothing." 

Even these lists of donations are interesting 
reading, they are so alive with heart history. 
There were gifts of money, from five cents to 
five hundred dollars, but this was not mere 
"filthy lucre." It came sanctified by prayer 
and folded in letters breathing sympathy, letters 
over whose pages the tears fell as they were read 
at the office desk. And there were other offer- 
ings — queer, useful, useless, pathetic things — 



98 THE BUILDERS 

rings, bracelets, old coins that had lain for years 
in treasure boxes, sewing machines, pianos, soap, 
and postage stamps, tooth-picks, wash tubs and 
cows — everything that could possibly represent 
value, or be of use as it was. The very first gift 
toward the Chicago Deaconess Home was five 
dollars brought Mr. Meyer one day in the spring 
of '87 by one of the girls who had decided 
to do without her vacation and give up a sal- 
aried position to devote herself to the pioneer 
work of that memorable summer. The Home 
and the deaconess herself at that time v/as only 
a vague and misty possibility, but the girl was 
Isabelle Reeves, one of the three first deaconesses 
licensed, and one who from that time to this has 
never faltered in her devotion to the cause. 
Truly the deaconesses of those days were what 
Bishop Vincent said deaconesses should be, 
** women of visions and dreams and ideals.'' 

About this time, too, was started a series of 
** chain letters," a plan which, in these scientific 
days, has been relegated to the back yard of 
unwise adventures into the field of philanthropic 
economy, but which aided immensely, neverthe- 
less, in bringing the new work definitely before 
the people. It is interesting to note, in the treas- 
urer 's report for the year 1889, an item of 
$10,032.89 received from ''dime letters," and 
between one and two thousand dollars was add- 
ed to this during the next few months ; so that, 
even from a financial standpoint they were not 



THE NEXT THING 99 

altogether unremunerative, while their advertis- 
ing value was immense. They accomplished for 
the deaconess work what the ^'Nickel Fund'' 
did for the Training School, they brought it 
definitely before the minds of thousands of the 
people who would otherwise never have heard 
of it. 

But over and beyond all these financial inter- 
ests, one absorbing idea was coming to possess 
the hearts of the leaders of the movement, froiii 
Mr. and Mrs. Meyer down to the least and latest 
of the students. The Message of August, 1888, 
contains one little prophetic gleam, the far head- 
light of the Orphanage that was to be, but for 
the most part the insistent and immanent call 
was the same as that which confronted the Great 
Teacher himself when he found his work inter- 
rupted and his sermons shortened by the multi- 
tude of the sick, the blind, the halt and the lame, 
who were brought and laid at his very feet, that 
their wretchedness might make its own appeal 
to his heart of pity ; and like him they had com- 
passion on the multitude, whose physical suffer- 
ing beclouded their spiritual vision. 

From the beginning the School had offered 
lectures and practical lessons in nursing by 
physicians and skilled nurses. But day by day 
the students and deaconesses in their visitation 
had found cases that taxed their resources to 
the utmost, and yet which could not, in the 
nature of things, be sent to hospitals. Hospital 



100 THE BUILDERS 

accommodations were far more limited in those 
days than now, and truth to tell, were largely 
in the hands of the Catholic Church. There was 
at that time but one Methodist hospital in the 
United States, the one recently opened in Brook- 
lyn, N. T. Naturally the new order of deacon- 
esses was expected to somehow make good this 
deficiency. Public sentiment laid upon their 
shoulders the burden of caring for the sick. Evi- 
dently there must be a class of workers especial- 
ly set apart for this service, and they must have 
the advantages of more thorough technical train- 
ing than the lectures of the class room afforded. 
As early as October, 1887, The Message issued 
an appeal for women to offer themselves for this 
particular service. Miss Thoburn emphasized 
the appeal in her writings and public addresses. 
The physicians in the Training School Board 
suggested plans for the professional training of 
such nurses. 

When possession was secured of the newly 
purchased house adjoining the school, the pres- 
sure for space was a little relieved for the time 
being, and four rooms were set apart for a hos- 
pital ward : two for patients, one for the nurse, 
and one for dispensary and diet kitchen. The 
first patient was sent by Dr. I. N. Danforth, 
Christmas day, 1889. Soon an organization was 
formed. We quote from the Message of Sep- 
tember and October, 1888: 



THE NEXT THING 101 

We cannot measure the goodness of God by our 
thoughts concerning him. About two months ago we 
received a contribution of ten dollars for a Methodist 
Hospital in Chicago. We questioned then whether we 
were wise in even receiving the money, the prospect 
of the Hospital seemed so far distant. But before 
these lines reach the reader's eyes, an organization 
will have been formed, trustees appointed, steps for 
securing a charter taken, and the very much needed 
hospital really established. More than one great ad- 
vantage will result from this institution. Our great 
denomination will be wheeled into line with others 
in caring for the sick and suffering of our cities in 
buildings especially adapted to such purposes; and 
incidentally our deaconesses who look forward to 
nursing will have an opportunity for practical train- 
ing that they could hardly otherwise receive. The 
hospital w^ork will not, however, monopolize all their 
energies. We still adhere to our original plan of 
caring for the sick poor in their own homes at the 
same time we carry on the work in the hospital. Are 
we hoping too much when our hearts look forward 
to scores and hundreds carrying blessings of healing 
and hope into sad and suffering homes? 

With the formal organization a building was 
rented for hospital purposes with the name of 
Wesley Hospital. Later a more commodious 
brick structure was erected on the corner of 
Dearborn and Twenty-fifth Sts. For some years 
it remained under the supervision of the Train- 
ing School, and then, in the exuberance of 
growth, it became independent and started on a 
career of its own. But, built into the imposing 
pile of brick and stone that now occupies the 



102 THE BUILDERS 

corner of Dearborn and Twenty-fifth Sts. are 
still the walls of the old Wesley Hospital, the 
first Methodist hospital in the West, and second 
in this country — a direct outgrowth of the Train- 
ing School. 

The growth of the deaconess order has never 
been able to keep pace with the demand for hos- 
pital service, once the idea that this, too^ was 
the legitimate work of the Church, had taken 
possession of the popular imagination. Again 
and again have hospitals and hospital property 
been offered to deaconess organizations only to 
be refused for want of a sufficient number of 
deaconesses. A deaconess a few years ago in a 
public address ventured the statement that a 
million dollars worth of property had been lost 
to the church in this way. At the close of her 
address a gentlem_an came to her and said : 

*'Did I understand you to say that a million 
kiollars had been refused in hospital property for 
w^ant of deaconesses to ^man' such institutions?" 

'*Yes," she replied, thinking her statement 
was about to be questioned, ^^and I do not think 
the estimate too high.'' 

*'Well," he said, '4n future you can say a 
million and a half," and then went on to tell 
of a property worth half a million which had 
recently been declined for the same reason and 
had pa>ssed into the hands of the Catholic church. 
Calls for deaconess nurses by the score go un- 
answered from year to year. Still, aside from 



THE NEXT THING 103 

all that they might have done, much has really 
been accomplished. According to the Methodist 
Year Book of 1910 there were in the United 
States fifteen hospitals under deaconess manage- 
ment, in which three hundred young women 
were being trained for nurses, though not all 
of these expect to serve in deaconess ranks. 
Surely these are an eloquent tribute to the little 
beginning, nourished in the heart of the Train- 
ing School. 

There is no lack, in these days of mental and 
moral therapeutics, of argument in favor of 
strictly religious hospitals, — ^hospitals where sen- 
timent is recognized as an asset as well as science, 
where it is understood that the cause, and hence 
the cure, of disease may lie deeper than may be 
found by the surgeon ^s lancet, hospitals where 
the appeal of common humanity can, in an emer- 
gency, untie the hardest knot of red tape. Dr. 
Eichard Cabot in an exceedingly practical book 
on ** Social Service and the Art of Healing" 
pleads for what he calls ''team work" in hos- 
pitals, between physicians and social and relig- 
ious workers. He says: ''To make the doctor's 
work worth while to himself and his patient 
it must be done in co-operation with some one 
who has time and ability to teach hygiene and 
to see that this teaching is carried out ; to study 
home conditions, and report upon their part in 
causing or prolonging disease ; and to help mod- 
ify those conditions, financial, mental, moral, 



104 THE BUILDERS 

which stand between the patient and recovery.'* 
Perhaps the ideal might even sooner be reached 
if the nurse herself had, in addition to her hos- 
pital training, such a course in Christian social 
service as would enable her to ** think of a hu- 
man being as a whole, just as naturally as a phy- 
sician concentrates attention upon a part," and 
to be able to minister to a sick soul as well as 
a sick body. 

One of the first patients cared for in the little 
hospital ward of the Training School was a case 
in point. One blustery winter day a deaconess 
found in a little hut in an alley an old woman, 
not really sick but lying in bed because of weak- 
ness and cold and hunger. There was no fire 
and no fuel in the wretched home, and the only 
thing in the shape of food was a little uncooked 
rice. She was looking for her son to come home 
and ** perhaps he would bring something to 
eat." Temporary relief and care were provided, 
and little by little there was unfolded a most 
pitiful story. Forty years before, this woman 
had been mistress of a luxurious home in an 
eastern city, but her husband's death and the 
indiscretions of a weak and dissipated son had 
swept away their possessions. Moving west, in 
the hope of building up their shattered fortunes, 
they had severed connections with their old 
friends. Following with a mother's love the 
fortunes of her son, the poor woman had sunk 
lower and lower until everything was gone. Even 



THE NEXT THING 105 

her goldbowed spectacles had been pawned by 
the son for drink, and among their few pitiful 
belongings there was only one hint of a former 
life, a worn black silk dress, from which the 
costly lace trimming had been ripped. At first 
she would not listen to any plan that threatened 
to separate her from her dissipated son, but a 
crisis was reached when they were about to be 
turned out from even the wretched shelter they 
occupied for unpaid rent. She was not a case 
for any existing hospital, though her health was 
shattered, her heart broken, her strength gone — • 
there was no disease to make her worthy the 
skill of doctors and nurses. She was brought to 
the little ward in the Training School and placed 
in a clean white bed; and from that time until 
her death a few years later, she lacked neither 
food, warmth nor patient, tender care. The son 
was encouraged to visit her, and earnest though 
futile efforts made for his reclamation. One day 
Mrs. Meyer said, ^'I'm sorry, Auntie, that we 
can't give you a big wide bed instead of this 
narrow one, but I hope it is comfortable." 

*'0h, yes,'* was the quick reply, **It's a better 
bed than my Savior had, and it's plenty good 
enough for me." 

The nurse one day gathered up for the patient 
some papers from her native to^vn which she 
loved to have read to her. Among other things 
the reader came upon some reminiscences writ- 
ten by one of the pioneer preachers of the state. 



106 THE BUILDERS 

''Auntie" at once recognized the name as that 
of her own pastor in the old days, and listened 
eagerly as the reader went on with the rem- 
iniscences. Soon she heard her own name: 

Mrs. Woodward was a courageous woman, and 
ready for every good work. Slie was the wife of one of 
the prominent merchants of the city, had time at her 
command and was active in benevolent work. Like 
Dorcas in the Apostolic Church she ^'remembered the 
poor" and was active and useful among them. No 
class of workers in the church did more for the 
degraded and erring than did this elect lady, and I 
have no doubt that in the judgment day the peer- 
less Judge will say to her, "Inasmuch as ye have 
done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, 
ye have done unto me." 

This holy woman was a shining light. She shone 
in garrets, and cellars and dens of iniquity, where 
she went in Jesus* name to seek and to save the lost. 

And this was the woman who, but for the 
ministrations of the deaconess, might have died 
in her miserable home of hunger and exhaustion, 
or been taken with the worst and vilest of hu- 
manity to the county poor house to find at last 
a pauper's burial. 

When, after a few years of waiting the tried 
soul was set free from its tenement of clay, it 
was not hurried to the potter's field, or the hor- 
rors of the morgue, but decently arrayed in the 
old black silk, with soft lace folded over the 
breast and white roses in the hands, it was given 
Christian burial. Truly, in this world of com- 



THE NEXT THING 107 

bined flesh and spirit there is need for the com- 
forting touch of love and pity as well as for the 
triumphs of science. 

The little seed of Orphanage interest had been 
lying in fertile soil, and it soon began to show 
signs of life. At this time the Deaconess Home 
still occupied the house adjoining the School; 
and with an open door between the two and un- 
der the same boards of management they were in 
the closest communication. So far as the mis- 
sionary work of the students was concerned, 
their experiences and difficulties were largely 
identical with those of the deaconesses. The 
problems of helpless childhood were constantly 
before them. "With the exception of the dubious 
care of the county poor house, there was almost 
no refuge provided for children deprived of 
home and mother's care, save in the fold of the 
Catholic Church, that great organization which, 
with its old and well established institutions, 
reached the point of providing for its sick, its 
aged, and its helpless ones years earlier than 
the Protestant denominations. 

There was also as always the relief of the 
*' childless home" for the ^'homeless child," and 
deaconesses were frequently able to avail them- 
selves of this solution of the problem. But there 
always remained cases, and these the most piti- 
ful and helpless of all, for whom no *' childless 
home" would open its doors; frail little forms, 
made unlovely by want and neglect, innocent 



108 THE BUILDERS 

victims of parental misdoings or parental ignor- 
ance and inefficiency, bearing the curse of an 
immutable law, in both soul and body — little 
ones lacking all that winsomeness of childhood 
that could make its appeal to the mother and 
father heart of the world. Many such, if they 
could be given the chance which is every child's 
by right — an environment of comfort and love — • 
might still come into their lost estate of child- 
hood ; but lacking that, must forever wander like 
lost souls in an unfriendly world. Then there 
were others not wholly orphaned, whose remain- 
ing parent, a grandmother, or aunt, while not 
able to perform a parentis duty in caring for 
them, still refused to relinquish legal control to 
those who could; and yet who, realizing their 
limitations, would be glad to place them in a 
safe home for a few years, or until conditions 
were bettered. In many ways the work of both 
School and Home was making it imperative that 
there should be a place provided where these 
classes of dependents could be sheltered, either 
temporarily or permanently, and still remain 
under the care of the deaconess. But so far, one 
little inadequate gift lay alone waiting to be 
sufficiently reinforced by larger contributions to 
make it seem safe from a business standpoint to 
take steps toward establishing a shelter within 
the Methodist Church for these lambs of the 
flock. 
But the history of the past few years with itg 



THE NEXT THING 109 

lessons of faith had not been in vain. In other 
extremities, without visible resources, these pio- 
neers had gone forward until, like the children 
of Israel, their feet touched the brim of the river 
before the way was opened ; but, going forward, 
the necessary help had come. Now, a friend, 
Mrs. Mary Marilla Hobbs, in answer to a state- 
ment of the need, offered the use of a cottage in 
Lake Bluff as a beginning ; and in this opportun- 
ity they saw their responsibility. We quote 
again from the Message: 

"Is not this a voice from God to 'go on* even 
though our feet are dipped in the river's brink? We 
must so interpret it. And so we shall go on. It is a 
magnificent thing to risk all — ^to dare everything for 
God, to see what he can and will do with us if we 
are wholly given up to him. We mean to try this. 
Pray for us; help us on." 

As an illustration of the need of the deaconess 
orphanage, we give the following incident: One 
day a decent looking German woman poured out 
her story to a deaconess. It was a pathetic story, 
but not at all remarkable — ^more pathetic, per- 
haps, for being so sadly typical. The caller was 
not an uncomely woman, but wore the stern look 
of one who has fought hard in the battle of life 
and who looks defeat in the face. As unemo. 
tionally as if telling the story of a stranger she 
stated her case, but the sympathetic listener read 
between the lines. A few years before her hus- 
band had died, leaving her with three children, 



110 THE BUILDERS 

the youngest an infant. While her husband had 
lived and worked there was no want, but his 
illness and burial expenses swept away every 
dollar of their small savings; and with the cares 
of motherhood the widow had also to take up 
the burden of the breadwinner, fighting with 
one hand the battle which has often been too 
much for the strong man. She opened a little 
bakery, living in the rear. For three years she 
had done her woman's best and had failed. One 
of the children had been sick and she had run 
behind in her business. She was a hundred dol- 
lars in debt, and, as was plainly to be seen, had 
completely lost heart and hope. 

'^I'd just made up my mind to put the chil- 
dren in the Home," naming a large Cath- 
olic institution, **and as far as I'm concerned 
it doesn't make any difference v/hat becomes of 
me after I've had to give up my children. You 
never see them again, once they're in there ;'^ 
and the hard face set into still harder lines. 

*'And then?" — suggested the listener. 

''And then the woman that lives next house 
to me, she told me about some one she kncAV, — • 
she called her a deaconess — kind of a Protestant 
Sister, she thought she was — ^that knew ways to 
help along sometimes when folks was in trouble. 
She got the address where she lived and wanted 
me to come and see you about it first." But the 
w^oman 's weary face told that she had very little 
hope that it was going to be of any use. 



THE NEXT THING HI 

'*Yoti eeii;ainly have had a hard time,'* re- 
sponded the listener, already meditating ways 
and means, '^But I think we may be able to help 
you out." A flush rose in the woman's face as 
she listened for the next word. 

^'Suppose we were able to take your children 
off your hands for a time ; then you could go to 
work and get on your feet again, could you 
not?'' 

''Sure I could. But the children — could I 
see them once in a while ? Wouldn 't they be put 
out?" with eager incredulity. 

*'No, they would certainly not be adopted out 
without your consent; and you could see them 
as often as you wished." 

''And can I have them back if I get a home 
started for them again?" 

"Certainly you can." 

"And what will there be to pay?" There 
surely must be a "string" attached to it some- 
where. 

"That depends. I really don't see how you 
could pay anything at all just now. When you 
get your affairs straightened up you can pay 
one dollar a week — two dollars — three dollars, 
just what you can afford. We'll see about that 
when the time comes." 

Only pay "what she was able!" What man- 
ner of people were these who conducted business 
on the basis of what she was able to pay, instead 
of what they were able to get? A kind she had 
never encountered before certainly. 



112 THE BUILDERS 

'^What do you do this for?" she stammered 
with a final effort at self-control. 

**For your sake — ^to help you out of a hard 
place — and for the children's sake. And *for 
Jesus' sake.' " 

*' That's sure enough Christianity. I never 
knew what it meant before, ' ' and the tears long 
repressed had their way until the deaconess felt 
her own eyes grow wet as she comforted and 
encouraged the mother to a new effort. 

Another time just at the close of day, the bell 
rang, and as a deaconess opened the door there 
stood a mite of a boy, a mere baby, quite alone. 
She looked at the little stranger in surprise; 
and he, evidently having no message to deliver, 
looked up at her in silence. Then in the gather- 
ing darkness she perceived a woman standing 
below on the sidewalk. 

**Is this your child?" she demanded. 

'*No, Miss," said the woman, coming forward. 
^'But 'e was tagged to the Deaconess 'ome an' 
so I just brought 'im along." 

'* Tagged to the Deaconess Home! What do 
you mean?" 

**Yes, sure. Miss; with a bit of a card around 
'is neck. 'B came in on the mornin' train at 
the Northwestern an' there bein' nobody to look 
after 'im they let's 'im play around the waitin' 
room an' the depot matron keeps an eye on 'im. 
But when night was eomin' on an' the matron 
wants to go 'ome she says, * Whatever will we 



THE NEXT THING 113 

do with the child? 'E's tagged to the Deae'ness 
'ome, whatever place that may be/ says she. 
An' I says, 'I know where that place is; I go 
right past it hevery night on my way 'ome,' I 
says, 'an I'll take the child along wi' me an' 
leave 'im there,' I says, an' there 'e is !' " Add- 
ing by way of an after thought, '* I he's a scrub 
woman at the station, Miss." 

She was allowed to go on her way, and the 
little stranger was brought in ; a handsome, well- 
set-up little fellow of three or four, bearing him- 
self manfully, in spite of a tiny quiver of the 
lip. Sure enough, tied about his neck was a 
card bearing the address of the Deaconess Home, 
and he said his name was ^^Ira." He carried a 
small parcel Avrapped in a newspaper. **What 
is this?" asked the deaconess. ^^ Shall I open 
it?" thinking it might contain some solution 
of the mystery. 

''That," said the child solemnly, "That's my 
ovver pants," and that one absurd little pair of 
"ovver pants" constituted his entire wardrobe 
and his sole earthly possessions. The next day 
came a letter from an unknown man in some 
far away town stating that his wife was dead 
and his home broken up, and he was sending his 
youngest child to the deaconesses to be cared 
for. And so came another candidate for the new 
Orphanage. 

Ira remained in the Deaconess Home a few 
days at the imminent danger of being hopelessly 



114 THE BUILDERS 

spoiled with the petting and stuffing he received, 
and then with the German woman's children, 
and five others, was taken in the spring of '94, 
to the Lake Bluff cottage and placed in the 
care of the deaconess in charge. He was soon 
adopted into an excellent home. The German 
woman ^'made good" and after a few years of 
honest toil, paying ^^what she was able" toward 
the support of her family, she married again, 
an honest, capable, working man and took her 
children back, this time to a Christian home. 

But scarcely was the little cottage at Lake 
Bluff opened than it was full to overflowing, and 
still there were children outside whose pitiful 
plight demanded admission, until the care takers 
were tempted to say of the little ones within the 
fold, ^*What are they among so many?" 

Then came another red letter day, made mem- 
orable by the announcement of two splendid 
gifts from two different sources — gifts that 
marked a new era of development in each of the 
institutions benefited. It was at the annual 
May meeting of the trustees for the Home and 
School, 1894. The usual reports had been re- 
ceived, and the usual routine of business trans- 
acted, when the president of the board, Mr. J. 
B. Hobbs, stated that he had a message to deliver 
^' which might be of interest." He had been 
commissioned by a business man whose name he 
was not just then at liberty to divulge, to state 
that the said business man had purchased a 



THE NEXT THING 115 

large corner lot in the southern part of the city 
and proposed to give it outright to the Training 
School incorporation as soon as a stipulated sum 
could be secured for a new building. The value 
of this lot, the president said, was not less than 
$20,000, by far the greatest gift the institution 
had yet received. 

And then, hushing the little murmur of sur- 
prise and delight, the president went on to say, 
with his serene dignity, that he himself had rec- 
ognized other needs in this wonderfully develop- 
ing work. He had for some time been especially 
interested in the fate of the homeless and de- 
pendent children that the deaconesses were try- 
ing to care for, and since they had demonstrated 
their determination and ability to care for them 
in the borrowed cottage, he had decided to build 
for them a larger house at Lake Bluff — a little 
house, he said modestly, but one which he hoped 
would furnish accommodations for fifty or sixty 
of these little ones. And then he displayed for 
their approval the architect's plans which he 
had with him, for a big three story house, with 
basement and wide, sunny verandas. 

Then the applause broke forth, and ^'Praise 
God from whom all blessings flow," rang out 
from full hearts. And, just as they had done 
from the beginning, they went on their knees 
and thanked God first, then rose with moist eyes 
to thank the faithful stewards of their Lord's 
money for their timely gifts. 



116 THE BUILDERS 

The donation of the South Side corner lot, 
which settled the future location of the Training 
School, was the initial gift to the School of a 
man whose continued benefactions, as well as 
his modest, kindly Christian character, has made 
his name, with that of his worthy wife, loved 
and honored wherever spoken, Mr. N. W. Harris 
of Chicago. 

Mr. Hobbs had been from the start a loyal 
friend of the Training School and deaconess 
movements, and had aided both with generous 
gifts. His gift of a house at Lake Bluff now 
placed the Children's Home on an assured foot- 
ing, and henceforth it had only to grow. A 
number of city lots in Lake Bluff were con- 
tributed by Mr. Robert Fowler, Mr. William 
Bering, Mr. W. H. Bush, Mr. N. W. Harris, and 
others. The corner stone of the new building 
was laid the following November but the house 
was not ready for dedication until June, 1895. 
The irrepressible^ growing family had not waited 
for the dedication, however, but had been taking 
possession of room after room as soon as they 
were nearly enough completed to be habitable. 
Bishop Merrill was present at the dedicatory 
services and made a dignified address. Mrs. 
Hobbs in a few graceful words formally pre- 
sented the keys of the building, Mrs. Meyer ac- 
cepted them in behalf of the Society, and other 
addresses followed. 

It is interesting to note how in nearly every 



THE NEXT THING 117 

one of the addresses the ke;yTiote was struck of 
the ^^next thing." ^^I shall be glad," said the 
Bishop, **to see presently here alongside the 
home for neglected children a home for needy 
old people. It strikes me that Lake Bluff is as 
good a place to go to Heaven from as any other." 
Dr. Truesdell recalled the fact that years be- 
fore when the two hundred acres that is now 
Lake Bluff had been purchased and laid out in 
city lots, he had prophesied that it would some- 
time contain a hospital, an old people's home 
and a children's home. The hospital had come 
— though not in Lake Bluff — the children's home 
had come, and he hoped soon to see the begin- 
ning of the old people's home. 

The little folks, a family of fifteen or twenty 
by this time, with their songs and their marches, 
acquitted themselves creditably at the dedica- 
tion; and, looking into their faces, many hearts 
were glad that the great IMethodist Church had 
at least begun the work of saving the lost chil- 
dren of the city from lives of want and degra- 
dation. 

The work, thus happily launched, grew rapid- 
ly and soon a separate incorporation was formed. 
At present it occupies six buildings and an en- 
tire block of land, valued at $55,000. It cares 
for an average of a hundred and forty children 
all the time; while more than thirteen hundred 
have been under its care for longer or shorter 
periods of time, and through its efforts scores 



118 THE BUILDERS 

of homeless little waifs have been placed in real 
homes Vv'here they are loved and card for as if 
*^to the manor bom." In January, 1898, Miss 
Lucy Judson became superintendent, and to her 
faithful and untiring efforts much of the present 
standing of the institution is due. 

It was during these formative years of rapid 
development, when new doors were being opened 
to the deaconess work with almost bewildering 
rapidity, that it seemed essential that there 
should be some organization other than the some- 
what indefinite plan laid down by the General 
Conference, more especially for the purpose of 
receiving and holding property until a local or- 
ganization could be completed. To this end the 
Methodist Episcopal Deaconess Society was or- 
ganized in the rooms of the Training School, re- 
ceiving its charter in 1895. At one time most 
of the property used by deaconesses, with the 
exception of that held by the "Woman's Home 
Missionary Society, was held in the name of this 
Society. One of the first important pieces of 
property committed to its care was the Agard 
Rest Home at Lake Bluff. This beautiful and 
convenient building was erected by Mrs. Rosa 
Agard West as a future Rest Home for deacon- 
esses, and named after her father, one of the 
honored pastors of the Rock River Conference. 
It has already been a haven of rest for many a 
tired deaconess and missionary. 

Naturally, with the care of the sick and orphan 



THE NEXT THING 119 

there had already come to the Training School 
Society and the deaconesses the appeal from the 
helpless and homeless aged. Perhaps no class 
appealed more strongly to the sympathies of 
these Christian workers than these non-combat- 
ants, many of whom had fought bravely in the 
battle of life, only to be worsted at the end. 
Financial unwisdom, the untimely loss of chil- 
dren, ill-health, legalized fraud — any or all of 
these combined, might turn the scale against 
them, in the bitter struggle, and leave them to 
hide away to die, outcast and alone; or to live 
dependent upon the grudging charity of neigh- 
bors almost as poor as themselves. The story of 
Mrs. Woodward, one of the first patients of the 
hospital, has already been told. The first claim- 
ant for an old people's home had a history 
scarcely less pathetic. 

Mrs. Allen lived alone and supported herself 
by going out to nurse the sick. Not the well-to- 
do sick, — she was no white-capped, diplomaed 
nurse — only a sweet little old woman with a 
*' faculty" for taking care of sick folk. She 
worked for the poor who could pay only a pit- 
tance, and if they were too poor to pay any- 
thing at all, she eared for them just the same, 
for the sake of common humanity. Sometimes, 
when the mother was ill and there was not even 
food in the house, she would go to the kitchens 
of the wealthy and ask for food to carry to 
those who had none. She was a quaint little 



120 THE BUILDERS 

figure, scarcely five feet tall, yet carrying her- 
self with a dignity that Queen Victoria herself 
might have envied. In fact it was remarked 
that if she were arrayed in queenly trappings 
she might easily have sat for a portrait of her 
Royal Highness. 

But age and feebleness were sapping her 
strength year by year, and there came a time 
when she was scarcely able to drag herself to her 
tasks, and the long cold winter was at hand. 
*'But," she explained afterward, ^Hhere were 
three sick women I was looking after who didn't 
have anything to eat for theirselves or the chil- 
dren only what I brought to them. So I thought 
I'd look after them till Christmas time, for then 
there's always folks that'll give to the poor. 
And maybe after that they'd be able to look 
after theirselves." 

But the night before Christmas, rising from 
her bed in the cold and dark, she suddenly be- 
came unconscious and fell, breaking her wrist. 
She lay alone and uncared for until the dawn. 
Then, dressing herself with the help of a neigh- 
bor woman, she crept slowly and painfully out 
to find a physician. But it was Christmas, the 
day when dispensaries and offices for the most 
part are closed, and physicians are enjoying the 
comforts of their own firesides, and she was only 
a little forlorn old woman whom nobody knew. 
And so all that blessed Christmas, from early 
morn till four in the afternoon, one of Christ's 



THE NEXT THING 121 

own walked the city streets, half-fainting with 
pain and trembling with cold and fatigue, before 
she conld find a doctor to apply splints and 
bandages to the broken wrist. That day, when it 
woiold seem that the love of God should so flood 
the world that a lame dog would be better cared 
for! 

It was during the days of helplessness and 
rheumatic invalidism that followed, that a dea- 
coness found her; and, as she used often to tes- 
tify, ^^I ain't never wanted for anything since.'' 

She was not quite penniless. Sh^ held a title 
to a small city lot somevv^here in the suburbs, but 
the injured wrist would never be strong again, 
and in her helpless condition the proceeds of the 
city lot would not support her for long. There 
was no Protestant institution on which she had 
any claim. She was brought to the Home, with- 
out rule or precedent save the commission to 
*^ minister to the poor," and soon became a loved 
and honored member of the family. Soon an- 
other aged and lonely woman who had spent a 
life of humble devotion to others, was found in 
the county poor house, where — shrinking from 
the unwilling charity of distant relatives — she 
had hidden herself and what she called ^^her dis- 
grace," though it was only the disgrace of being 
poor. She, too, was brought to the Home. A 
little later another, equally deserving, found the 
same safe haven ; and for months these three 
King's daughters remained in the family — *^ Just 



122 THE BUILDERS 

as near heaven as we'll ever get in this life," as 
Mrs. Allen used to say with a sly little twinkle, 
referring to her **sky parlor" as well as to her 
enjoyment of the life there. 

But there were other aged people who needed 
a home. The deaconess family itself was con- 
stantly growing, and the house did not grow to 
meet the demands. So once more plans were dis- 
cussed for a new venture. It was as evident 
that the Old People's Home must come, as it 
had been that the Children's Home or the Hos- 
pital or the Deaconess Home or the School itself 
had come. Already the first gift was in hand-^- 
Mrs. Allen had offered her city lot. It was her 
sole worldly possession and she gave it royally. 
*'I want to give it for a Methodist Old People's 
Home," she said, ^*and I want to have the stars 
and stripes always floating from the top;" and 
every mention of the gift always brought a com- 
placent smile to the dear, faded face. 

About this time it was learned that a good 
woman, Mrs. Howland, in the north part of the 
city, had been so stirred by the need for a 
Christian home for the aged poor, that she had 
opened her own doors and undertaken the work 
single handed. She was already caring for six 
or seven such, but now gladly turned over her 
responsibilities to the deaconesses. A cottage 
was rented in Evanston, and Isabelle Reeves wag 
placed in charge. There was nothing to begin 
with but the aged wards and a great faith. But, 



THE NEXT THING 123 

as at the beginning, the leaders 'Sprayed much 
and went forward. ' ' For more than a year the 
Evanston cottage was occupied, the family in- 
creasing to tVv'Cnty and then it would hold no 
more. The old folks themselves were fervently 
praying for a new home. Mrs. Allen used to 
say: **IVe had the assurance in my heart that 
our prayers are going to be answered;" and she 
would smile confidently at the vision always be- 
fore her, of an Old People's Home with the flag 
proudly floating from the top. 

In May, 1899 — the month of good tidings — 
came the news that their prayers were answered ; 
the first large gift had come and it made the 
Home an assured fact. Mr. William H. Bush, 
president of the Bush & Gerts Piano Company, 
had promised Mr. Meyer $20,000 and a plot of 
land in Edgewater for this purpose. It was a 
beautiful site commanding a fine view of Lake 
Michigan. Plans began at once for the building. 
Ground was broken in October and in the fol- 
lowing year the happy family moved into their 
quarters. About the same time that Mr. Bush 
made his initial gift, Mr. and IMrs. Thom.as Kent 
also promised Mr. Meyer $20,000 for the same 
purpose. The money is to be used in the erection 
of Kent Hall. The Plome now shelters about 
sixty old people. 

Soon after the organization of the Methodist 
Episcopal Deaconess Society, now the *' Metho- 
dist Deaconess Society,'' it was called upon to 



124 THE BUILDERS 

consider a totally new and unexpected field of 
opportunity. Jennings Seminary, a Methodist 
School situated at Aurora, 111., had for years 
been struggling with untoward conditions, and 
it was at last decided to close its doors. But 
this involved the disposal of the property, con- 
sisting of a large, five story stone building sur- 
rounded by a magnificent campus. The ques- 
tion came up in the annual session of the Rock 
River Conference of 1898, and after many plans 
had been discussed a delegation was sent to Mr. 
and Mrs. Meyer to ask whether the Deaconess 
Society would be willing to take it and carry on 
the school. Then and there were hurryings to 
and fro, and brisk conferences and hasty deci- 
sions, with the result that the proffered gift was 
accepted and the entire property by a practical- 
ly unanimous vote of the Conference was made 
over to the Society. 

This gift carried with it a new and unex- 
pected program in deaconess work. It had been 
planned to use the property as a boarding school 
for the education of girls and young women ; but 
with some, at least, it was a question whether 
such secular teaching was not outside the au- 
thorized sphere of deaconess activities. But the 
demand and the opportunity became evident up- 
on investigation. The Training School had, it 
appeared, frequently received applications from 
parents who, unaware of its special scope and 
mission, wished to place their daughters under 



THE NEXT THING 125 

the wise and careful supervision of Christian 
women while gaining an education. Often such 
applications came from young women them- 
selves who, for various reasons, had been unable 
at an early age to obtain the benefits of proper 
schooling, and from others whose limited funds 
placed the ordinary boarding school beyond 
their reach. Some of these wished to enter 
deaconess work, but needed a year or two of 
general schooling before taking up the technical 
course of the Training School. For such and 
many others it seemed that a preparatory school 
under the care of deaconesses would be a great 
desideratum. Thus far, Protestantism had had 
no answer to make to any of these appeals, and 
the consequence was that the Catholic Church 
had gathered into her convent schools hundreds 
and thousands of the daughters of Protestant 
homes. Largely through the Training School 
the demand for such a school had been made 
apparent. The property has been tendered and 
accepted. The question was were the deacon- 
esses **able to go up and possess the land,'' 
and the response was *^We are able." 

For a time the burdens of the new work 
rested heavily upon Mr. and Mrs. Meyer, who 
assumed the responsibility of superintendent 
and principal of the new school as it was being 
organized and got under way. The building, 
which was sadly out of repair, was refitted as 
to the three lower stories, and opened for stu- 



126 THE BUILDERS 

dents. The enrollment reached thirty the first 
year, and when the last one of the thirty was 
converted — under the sweet guidance of Miss 
Charlotte Codding, the principal, all felt that 
the stamp of God's approval had been placed 
on the enterprise. The school had solved its 
first problems, and now entered upon a career 
of great usefulness. The results of twelve years 
work have amply justified the undertaking. It 
is a thoroughly good school so far as literary 
training is concerned, and stands on the Uni- 
versity list, its students being admitted on their 
diplomas. Its atmosphere is bright, sunny and 
w^holesomely religious. Its attendance reached 
during the last year one hundred and twenty. 
The idea of a boarding school under dea- 
coness management being once accepted, a school 
for boys was the next step. Chaddock College 
in Quincy, 111., had a history that nearly dupli- 
cated that of Jennings Seminary; with the 
additional fact that, in additon to decaying 
fortunes, it was encumbered with a debt. A 
committee of ministers and business men waited 
upon Mr. Meyer to know if this, also, might not 
be considered a '* deaconess case," and be 
adopted by the Society. At this time the dea- 
conesses were considering the boy problem in 
a concrete form, one of the deaconesses, Letitia 
Hicks, having opened a home for homeless boys 
in Harvey, 111., where she was caring for fifteen 
or twenty future citizens. The Society took 



THE NEXT THING 127 

the splendid old Chaddoek building, debt and 
all, removed the little Harvey family there as 
a beginning and placed a deaconess in charge. 
Result after ten years, the debt lifted, and a 
flourishing boys' boarding school in successful 
operation. 

The N. A. Mason property at Normal, 111., 
was given to the Society at about the same time 
by the devoted woman whose name it bears. 
And after various experiments has developed 
into the ^^Baby Fold" where about twenty 
babies, deprived for various reasons of a 
mother's care, are finding home and care. 

During the years from 1888-1898 the Train- 
ing School was like a young and vigorous vine, 
growing with irrepressible vitality and send- 
ing out its runners here and there. Naturally, 
some of these lacking vitality died an untimely 
death. Some struck root in stony soil, and died 
for lack of sympathy and support; others be- 
came strong and vigorous plants in themselvea 
and in time independent of the parent vine. 
Meanwhile the School itself prospered glori- 
ously, and sent out its daughters each year by 
scores into all fields of missionary service. The 
mails brought letters from India and China, 
Africa and Korea, Japan, Thibet, South Amer- 
ica and Micronesia ; and the lessons taught in 
its class room were used where the ** smoke of 
a thousand villages" ascends to African skies, 
or where brown skinned natives gather by the 



128 THE BUILDERS 

banks of the Ganges. In this chapter we have 
tried to tell the story of some of the strongest 
of these off shoots from the parent vine. In the 
next we shall take up again the history of the 
School itself. 



ROOM TO GROW 



THE BURDEN. 

"O God/' I cried, "Why may I not forget? 

These halt and hurt in life's hard battle throng me 

yet, 

Am I their keeper? Only I? To bear 
This constant burden of their grief and care ? 
Why must I suffer for the others' sin? 
W^ould God my eyes had never opened been!" 

And the Thorn-Crowned and Patient One 

Replied, ''They tlironged me too. I too have seen.'' 

"But, Lord, thy other children go at will," I said, 

protesting still. 
"They go, unheeding. But these sick and sad. 
These blind and orphan, yea, and those that sin 
Drag at my heart. For them I serve and groan. 
Why is it? Let me rest, Lord. I Jiave tried" — 

He turned and looked at me: ''But I have died!'* 

"But, Lord, this ceaseless travail of my soul! 

This stress! This often fruitless toil 

These souls to win! 

They are not mine. I brought not forth this host 

Of needy creatures, struggling, tempest-tossed — 

They are not mine,'* 

He looked at them — the look of One divine; 

He turned and looked at me. "But they are mine!" 

"O God," I said, "I understand at last. 
Forgive! And henceforth I will bond-slave be 
To thy least, weakest, vilest ones; 
I would not more be free." 

He smiled and said, "It is to me," 

* Lucy Rider Meyer 



V. 

ROOM TO GROW 

'* Growing pains'' had become chronic with 
the Training School. It was as exasperating to 
those who loved peace and settled ways as the 
care of a fast growing boy, who persists in 
putting his hands too far through his coat 
sleeves. Scarcely was the School opened when it 
sighed for a building of its own, and no sooner 
was it settled under its own roof than it was 
groaning for enlargement. AVhen the annex was 
built and the adjoining residence purchased 
it was thought the problem of space was 
settled for an indefinite time ; but two years 
later, while still struggling with the debt, they 
found the enlarged building again too small. 
When new students came in the fall, sixty 
strong, and the Home and School together were 
trying to care for twenty-four deaconesses and 
nurses beside, the old problem of what to do 
with the new students was before them once 
more. It was partially solved by Mr. and Mrs. 
Meyer's renting a small house and moving out 
to make room for a few more students. Bu- 
in '91 the wail became louder and more pro- 
nounced. The school year closed with tentative 
plans for building on a new story for the influx 

131 



132 THE BUILDERS 

of the next year's students. Longing looks were 
also cast upon other property adjoining. The 
proposed enlargement did not take place, how- 
ever. Instead a desperate effort was made to 
raise the old debt. We can almost hear the 
sigh of relief that fluttered through the pages 
of the October Message. ''Paid at last, that 
dreadful debt! Thank the Lord!" And then 
follow thanks to friends, who have contributed, 
especially to one Mr. Hiram J. Thompson, who 
gave more than money — ^his personal effort for 
days in presenting the work and soliciting aid 
from friends in the City. 

But the question of expansion was still im- 
minent. The house was packed so full as to be 
"exceedingly inconvenient, and sometimes un- 
comfortable," and rooms were rented outside 
for an overflow. This state of affairs continued 
for four years longer, during which time the 
School did not grow, simply because it could not. 
It is true, the attendance of students was not 
kept at high water mark without constant effort ; 
but on the other hand, the growing demand for 
trained workers for both Home and Foreign 
Mission Fields and for the rapidly developing 
lines of deaconess work, was steadily on the 
increase, so there was the urgency of the demand 
to incite to continued effort. 

The close of the Spring Term of 1895 marked 
the end of the first decade and seems a fitting 
occasion for taking stock and marking progress. 



ROOM TO GROW 133 

The graduating class this year numbered thirty- 
seven, which had been about the average during 
the past three or four years. The reports show 
an aggregate of six hundred and seventy-one 
students, an average of sixty-seven a year — ■ 
considerably more than the ten-fold increase 
which formed the acme of Mrs. Meyer's hopes 
at the beginning. Of these, eighty-seven had 
entered active work in foreign fields, one hun- 
dred and eighty-six had entered deaconess work 
and sixty were engaged in other lines of Chris- 
tian service. There were reported at this time 
thirty-one deaconess institutions in the country. 
Of these all but four of the smaller ones had 
been aided, and thirteen entirely equipped with 
workers from the School. The devoted little 
band of pioneers who had watched over the 
cradle of the infant enterprise, and had borne 
it up with their gifts and personal influence — 
the Blackstones, the Hobbs, and others — had 
given generously for the founding of the School, 
but they now had other interests which claimed 
a share of their patronage. They felt that in 
building up a school for the annual training of 
sixty or seventy young women they had achieved 
abundant success, and believed it time to rest 
on their oars and enjoy results already obtained. 
The Meyers, on the other hand, who were put- 
ting into the enterprise not money but life, 
felt that the success already achieved was but 
an earnest of greater things to come, and were 



134 THE BUILDERS 

for pressing on. So it was with growing impa- 
tience that they saw the years go by while the 
work to which they had devoted their lives 
seemed to have reached its limit of development. 
So deep was their dissatisfaction v/ith the situ- 
ation that they even considered turning the 
work over to other hands, and seeking new fields 
where their genius for doing things could have 
freer scope. New York Methodism stood ready 
to offer them all the opportunity they desired to 
establish a similar school in that city. 

Matters were in this condition when in the 
winter of '94, Mr. N. W. Harris called one 
day at the School. He was shown about and 
expressed his approval of the work being done. 
Invited to call again, he replied that he was 
about to take a trip to Europe, but on his return 
hoped to give more attention to the school. 
''But/' said Mr. Me^^er, ''you may not find us 
here on your return. It begins to look as if 
we had gone about as far as we can in this 
work." Mr. Harris' protest was immediate and 
sincere, and on leaving he said, "Well, don't 
do anything toward going until I get back, and 
in the meantime, look about and see if there is 
any location in the city that will suit your pur- 
pose.'' The friendly hint was not lost. He re- 
turned from his European trip in May, and three 
days later he purchased for $20,000 the splendid 
grounds on which stately Harris Hall now 
stands. 



ROOM TO GROW 135 

The advent of this princely giver in the af- 
fairs of the School was by no means an accident. 
For years, in his quiet way, he had been follow- 
ing the work, watching its struggles and its suc- 
cesses, and he believed that the time had come 
for a broader opening into a field of limitless op- 
portunity. 

The newly acquired property was beautifully 
situated within five minutes' walk of Washing- 
ton Park, and afforded ample space for the erec- 
tion of three buildings, each larger than the one 
then occupied by the school. 

In the exultation of that new opening, Mrs. 
Meyer's faith leaped forward to immediate con- 
summation. She says, in announcing this gift 
in the columns of the Message, *'We must begin 
work on this building immediately, if the School 
goes into it in the fall." This was in June, and 
the first dollar was yet to be raised ! The July 
issue of the paper had a cut of the architect's 
plan, and an account of the first attempt toward 
raising the building fund. 

The Rev. T. Bowman Stephenson of London, 
the founder of the Wesley Deaconess Movement 
in that city, was in America and was invited to 
visit Chicago. A public banquet and reception 
given in his honor, given by Mr. Harris at the 
Sherman House, was made the occasion of 
launching the movement for the new building. 
Mr. Hobbs, the President of the Board of Trus- 
tees, introduced the guest of honor. He rose, 



136 THE BUILDERS 

spectacled and benignant, and responded by pay- 
ing a splendid tribute to the work of the deacon- 
esses in London. Other speeches followed, bub- 
bling with wit, eloquence and enthusiasm. Last, 
Mr. Harris w^as called upon. He held in his 
hand a little card covered with figures, and said : 

I am not very good at talking sentiment, but I am 
said to know something about figures, and I have 
just been figuring on this Training School. We are 
asked to put $35,000 into this new building. The 
interest on this at five per cent would be $1,750 a 
year. Now what do we get back for this? I see by 
the card in my hand that the students of the Train- 
ing School gave last year 5,108 days to missionary 
work. The new building would accommodate three 
times as many students, and we could reasonably 
expect three times as much work. But suppose it is 
only two-and-a-half times as much, or, putting it in 
round numbers, we would get at least 12,500 days or 
over, forty-one years service of a single person from 
these students each year, for our outlay of $1,750,-— 
an average of less than forty-three dollars a year. 
Can you get work done any more cheaply than that? 
Fm an American; Fm a Chicagoan; I'm a Methodist. 
I think we have duties right here at home; and when 
we can get forty-one years of work done in the 
interests of our own church here in the slums of our 
own city for $1,750 I think it good business policy to 
improve the opportunity. 

The little speech was characteristic in its mat- 
ter and telling in its results. Subscriptions 
amounting to $12,000 were received for the new 
building, and the ball was set rolling; but sum- 
mer passed, and fall, and winter, before a suf- 



ROOM TO GROW 137 

ficient amount was secured to warrant commenc- 
ing work. Students at the old quarters were 
crowded, even to the extent of three or four in a 
room, but bore it goodnaturedly, looking toward 
the good time coming. It was a whole year after 
the date of the gift before ground was broken 
and the new building really begun. And then, 
with all possible activity, fall passed and winter 
was upon them before the building was com- 
pleted. December 17th, 1895, the beginning of 
the winter vacation, was the day set for moving. 
On that eventful morning the unsuspecting 
sleeper was aroused in the cold and dark of the 
**wee sma' hours" by an unearthly din. One 
might have supposed the end of the world was 
being heralded by a storm of gigantic hailstones 
on a tin roof, or that Santa Claus' steeds had 
grown unmanageable and were running away 
over the housetops. Gathering one's scattered 
senses enough to open the door, one might have 
perceived the noise to be produced by a proces- 
sion of girls in dressing sacks and kimonos, each 
armed with a tin pan and two stout sticks. As 
doors opening all along the hall told that their 
mission had been accomplished and the big build- 
ing was awake, the band unceremoniously dis- 
persed, scurrying through the hall vdth sup- 
presed giggles and vanishing before they could 
be identified by their classmates and marked for 
future punishment. It vras four o'clock. The 
early reveille was a fitting prelude to a tumultu- 



138 THE BUILDERS 

ous day. There was a hurried and nneonven- 
tional breakfast; rooms were dismantled; trunks 
and boxes packed; halls hitherto devoted to 
^^ maiden meditation" resounded to the tread of 
masculine footsteps and the dragging of heavy 
trunks and furniture. Atlas loads were borne 
upon bent shoulders down the halls and stairs 
to where, in the street below, stood the great 
vans awaiting their loads. The hours fairly flew ; 
students vanished by twos and threes and dozens, 
and before dark the great empty '* outgrown 
home, ' ' about which had centered so many hopes 
and ambitions, and whose very walls had been 
consecrated by prayer and praise, stood empty 
and desolate; to dream, if an empty house can 
dream, of the ten busy and happy years just 
gone. Not for long, however. Hardly a day 
elapsed before it was rented by the thrifty Board 
of Trustees. 

But miles away to the South, past the very 
heart of the bustling city, awaited the ^^more 
stately mansion," still odorous of new wood 
and paint and plaster ; and here the slow moving 
vans and the rumbling street cars bestowed their 
cargo. 

And now new scenes of confusion ensue ; the 
vans unload their burdens in halls, rooms, any- 
where. Night falls and finds four score weary- 
women in all stages of desperation, seeking a 
place of rest. Fortunate those who have a bed 
ready to receive them. Some spread their couches 



ROOM TO GROW 139 

on the floor, with many a groan for blistered 
hands and aching backs. 

The time set for the formal dedication of the 
building was only two days off. It was wonder- 
ful how soon all that melee of people and things 
could settle into its appointed place and present 
a well-ordered and smiling front to the public ; 
and how, in the midst of the confusion, prepara- 
tions could be made for entertaining a crowd — 
for there was no longer any doubt about there 
being a crowd. It was all accomplished, however, 
and as the tides of smiling, well-dressed people 
surged through the halls and up and down the 
stairways, the inner circle of those who remem- 
bered the receptions of early days felt their 
hearts swell with renewed assurance that God 
had indeed been in the work. Dr. Traveler said 
in his speech at this dedication that three thou- 
sand children and one thousand adults had been 
brought into the various city missions recently, 
and most of them through the efforts of the 
Deaconesses and Training School students. 

In a few weeks students and teachers had 
adapted themselves to their new environment 
and the current of school life flowed smoothly 
on with the added exhilaration of enlarged op- 
portunities and an untrannneled outlook upon 
the future. 

The generous man for whom Harris Hall is 
named has become a fast friend of the work 
for which the school stands. A donation made a 



140 THE BUILDERS 

few years later, of $10,000 for half -scholarships, 
helps through the School ten young women 
yearly, with results that eternity alone will fully 
reveal. The magnificent Pension Fund for Dea- 
conesses inaugurated by him in 1909 is too well 
known to need mention here. 

This period was important also as marking the 
organic separation between the Training School 
and the Deaconess Home, which remained in its 
old location. Up to this point they had grown 
up together almost like one institution. Hence- 
forth each was to pursue its separate career. 
There has always, however, been a natural com- 
munity of interest, while the Message and Dea- 
coness Advocate, enlarged to represent both lines 
of work, continues to form a point of contact be- 
tween them. At the beginning of the year 1899, 
the paper dropped its original title and became 
simply the ^'Deaconess Advocate,'' in an effort 
to represent the entire deaconess work. 

The next three or four years was a period of 
quiet but steady growth, though the second year 
saw the new building comfortably filled with stu- 
dents, and it was evident that another building 
would be needed shortly. These were the years 
of the opening up of various deaconess enter- 
prises which occupied much of the attention of 
Mr. and Mrs. Meyer. Mr. Meyer also found ex- 
ercises for his gifts in various sociological experi- 
ments. One of these he insists should have been 
a valuable contribution to the problem of the un- 



ROOM TO GROW 141 

employed, even though it has not won unquali- 
fied approval from sociologists, even those of his 
own household. It was during a period of great 
financial depression. Out-of-works were unusu- 
ally numerous. One day a man was seen by Mr. 
Meyer marching slowly up and down one of Chi- 
cago 's great industrial thoroughfares, with bill- 
boards suspended from his shoulders, front and 
back, after the fashion known as a ^'sandwich 
man." On either side of the board was painted 
in big letters the legend, *'I Want Work." Mr. 
Meyer's interest was at once aroused. A man 
who had originality enough to conceive, and 
courage enough to carry out, so unique a plan 
was surely worthy of assistance. But at the time 
Mr. Meyer had no work to give him, nor could 
he find any of his acquaintances who would 
promise the sandwich man a job. Nothing 
daunted, he requested the man to report at the 
Training School. He found that he was an Aus- 
trian and his knowledge of English was exceed- 
ingly limited. He offered him fifty cents a day 
and his meals for such work as he could give 
him. The man eagerly assented. ''Now," said 
Mr. Meyer, showing him a pile of bricks, and 
helping out his commands by gestures, ''Carry 
these bricks across the yard and pile them up 
against that fence." The man did as he was 
told and came back for further orders. *' Carry 
them back and pile them where they were at 
first," said Jlr. Meyer. The man looked a little 



142 THE BUILDERS 

surprised but carried the bricks and piled them 
in their original place. He was then told to 
move them again. This time he -accepted the 
situation with a grin, and patiently carried the 
bricks to and fro, nineteen times, piling them ac- 
curately at each trip and wasting no time. On 
the morning of the second day Mrs. Meyer pro- 
tested. ' ^ The poor man ! It 's a shame to keep 
him carrying those bricks to no purpose. It 's an 
insult to his intelligence. We'll let him scrub 
floors instead." 

^'But," argued Mr. Meyer, ''that would be 
taking work from some woman who needs it, per- 
haps, even worse than he does.'' 

Nevertheless, the man was called in and in- 
structed in the use of scrubbing brush and mop. 
His first efforts were decidedly amateurish and 
it was only after Mrs. Meyer herself had, on her 
knees, given him practical demonstration of how 
it should be done, that he was able to show results 
that were satisfactory. Then he was tried at 
other work. Finally, Mr. Meyer paid him his 
wages and gave him a recommendation, saying 
that he ''had been in his employ" and had 
proven himself honest and industrious. On the 
strength of this he went out and secured a job 
and held it. Some two years later the man wrote 
back from Duluth in fairly good English, saying 
that he had just made application for a position 
of considerable responsibility ; and, having a rec- 
ommendation from his late employer, he would 



ROOM TO GROW 143 

also like one from ]\Ir. Meyer. It was promptly 
sent. The man secured the position and at last 
accounts vras making good. 

Mr. Meyer was so elated with the result of his 
experiment of offering unproductive labor to a 
man out of work as a means of helping him to a 
position, that he asked the editor of a daily pa- 
per to recommend the plan to charitable and re- 
lief societies of the city; but was told rather 
crustily that their province was to give news, 
and not to solve problems. It must be confessed 
that the experiment was tried in other cases dur- 
ing the next few years with less satisfactory re- 
sults, the men generally throwing down their 
bricks at about the third turn, and declaring 
they would not work at any such ^^fool job,*' 
and of course failing to receive their recommen- 
dation. 

While upon the subject of sociological experi- 
ments, one or two other observations may be 
given for what they are worth, as a contribution 
to the fund of useful information for the phil- 
anthropist of the twentieth century. 

It was inevitable that there should come to an 
institution intended to promote a spirit of Chris- 
tian helpfulness, frequent appeals for assistance 
from the unfortunate of all classes. Beggars and 
tramps especially tested its availability for their 
purposes ; and through the work of the students 
many cases of the deserving poor came to light. 
It has been the policy to help such by offering 



144 THE BUILDERS 

relief in return for service, or in small loans to 
meet an emergency, rather than by giving out- 
right. Mr. Meyer affirms that during all these 
years, while innumerable small sums have been 
loaned, varying from twenty-five cents to two or 
three dollars, only one woman has failed to re- 
deem her promise to return the money when cir- 
cumstances would permit, w^hile not one man haa 
ever come back to repay his loan. 'We forbear 
to base any conclusions on this premise, and 
give it only as an interesting bit out of one man's 
rather broad experience. 

Another interesting observation seems to in- 
dicate a change for the better in industrial con- 
ditions. Training School buildings were erected 
in 1886, 1896, 1900 and 1909, and Mr. Meyer be- 
lieves that a remarkable change for the better 
has taken place in the character and spirit of the 
workmen, especially during the period between 
the last two dates. The last two buildings were 
let to the same contractor, but the change in the 
conduct of the workmen and in their relation to 
the foreman was most marked. The men were 
more intelligent, the foreman more considerate. 
In 1900 beer in pails was being brought constant- 
ly to the men. In 1909 but little beer was deliv- 
ered to the men at work, or even at lunch hours, 
though probably some v/ent to the saloon for it. 
On the other hand, bottled milk was left in large 
quantities by the milk wagons. The attitude of 
the men at the earlier date was threatening and 




< 



Pi 
< 
X 



Mary Delamar Kinncar Monnctt Memorial Building 



Erected by Cordelia P. Monnett in memory of her 
sainted mother, for the Chicago Training: School. 




Monnett Hall. 
Extension Department of the Chicago Training School. 



ROOM TO GROW 145 

quarrelsome. Disagreement as to terms brought 
on an immediate strike. Mr. Meyer once found 
the men gathered in a turbulent crowd in the 
half -finished hall, while a brawny man with a 
club was threatening to knock down the first man 
who attempted to go to work. The crowd was 
ugly and he was obliged to call a policeman to 
clear the building. During the construction of 
the last building disputes were talked over fairly 
and usually settled amicably. "With due allow- 
ance for changes in local conditions, this seems at 
least to point to a decidedly better situation in 
industrial affairs. 

When the old question of accommodations for 
incoming students once more had to be settled by 
renting rooms outside, the smooth green sward 
stretching away east from the brick walls of the 
School building began to possess an increasing 
fascination for Mr. Meyer. In imagination he 
was already constructing another building along- 
side the real one, and saw both filled with stu- 
dents. When the need for a new building was 
presented to Mr. Harris he readily responded 
with another gift of $25,000. Owing to the in- 
creased cost of construction, the second building, 
made to satisfy the city 's requirements for a fire- 
proof structure with steel frame and tile parti- 
tions, would cost $40,000; but the remaining 
$15,000 was secured with little difficulty, and a 
second building on the same general plan as the 
first was completed free of debt in 1900. There 



146 THE BUILDERS 

were studerjts enough at the opening of the year 
to take possession of half this new building. The 
remaining space could not be left vacant, how- 
ever, even for a few months, and the plan for 
occupying it marks the beginning of the *' Ex- 
tension Department" of the Training School. 
The entire front half of the building was opened 
as a boarding hall, for visitors, friends of the 
school, students who sometimes came in for a few 
weeks of special work, or interested friends who 
were visiting the city. The scale of prices for 
rooms and board was fixed to little more than 
enough to cover expenses, and the whole was 
placed in charge of a very efficient Secretary, 
Miss Clara Yale Morse. The institution soon be- 
came popular. The easy access to lectures and 
other advantages offered by the School, the little 
social affairs provided for the residents, the at- 
mosphere of friendliness, and the positive Chris- 
tian influence — offered, but not compelled — gave 
a unique and attractive character to the place 
and drew to it a large number of the best class 
of young women. It has also become a well 
known home center for missionaries and Chris- 
tian workers of all denominations. 

This temporary expedient proved so successful 
that when the quarters it occupied were needed 
for students, the School authorities began to cast 
about for means to develop and make it perma- 
nent. About this time a letter was received 
which, it transpired, contained the solution to 



EOOM TO GROW 147 

this new problem. It was written in prim, old- 
fashioned characters and signed ^^ Cordelia P. 
Monnett.'' The writer asked if Mrs. Meyer 
would come to her home at Rensselaer, Indiana, 
as she wished to see her on a matter of business. 
That lady went at the first opportunity, and 
found in a comfortable farm house a little 
maiden lady devoting herself to the care of an 
invalid sister, both unmarried and advanced in 
years. 

During her visit Mrs. Meyer learned that Miss 
Monnett, the writer of the letter, had in early 
life been left, at her father's death, heir to one 
thousand acres of fertile Indiana land. She had 
remained with her mother until the death of the 
latter, when the daughter was about fifty years 
of age. The most tender and affectionate rela- 
tions had existed between mother and daughter, 
and for twenty-seven years the daughter had 
cherished the idea of devoting her property to 
some sort of a memorial of her loved mother. 
She was beginning to realize that her remaining 
years were few, and that she must soon decide 
the form her benefaction was to take. She 
had long been interested in deaconesses and the 
Training School, and thought that within the 
scope of their work might be found a suitable 
place for the memorial she desired to establish. 

The interview proved the beginning of a sin- 
cere friendship that lasted to the end of Miss 
Monnett 's life. Mrs. Meyer recognized in her 



148 THE BUILDERS 

new friend a peculiarly refined and noble char- 
acter, inherited from parents and grand-parents, 
who were of the finest type of untitled American 
nobility, derived from old Scotch-Irish ancestry. 
Miss Monnett on her part accepted with hearty 
approval the idea of making the training of 
young w^omen for Christian service the living 
monument to her mother 's memory. During the 
next two or three years Mr. Meyer was able at 
times to send a young woman from the School in 
return for scholarship privileges to assist Misa 
Monnett in the care of her sister. This kindly 
ministry strengthened the interest she already 
felt, and at the sister 's death she was quite ready 
to turn over to the School the care of her prop- 
erty and accept in return an annuity insuring a 
comfortable provision for the rest of her life. 
As she could no longer remain alone in the old 
home, she was invited to come directly to the 
School, though with some hesitation, as it was 
feared she could not easily adjust herself to the 
bustling life of the great institution. But she 
gladly acepted the invitation, weary with the 
burdens and responsibility of her long life. She 
was given a sunshiny room in the quietest part 
of a not very quiet building, and for three years 
remained an honored member of the big family. 
Though often lonely, she adapted herself with 
wonderful fortitude to the new conditions, say- 
ing, ^'I should have been lonely anywhere." On 
the whole she felt that these were the happiest, 



ROOM TO GROW 149 

most care-free years since her mother's death. 
She had always been a great reader, but when 
failing eyesight made reading difficult, she en- 
joyed sitting in class or lecture room where she 
could still find food for her active mind. Shy 
and self-depreciative to an almost painful de- 
gree, she slipped in and out like a little brown 
mouse, and yet when the time came that she was 
no longer seen, her quiet presence was sadly 
missed. 

The Indiana land had been sold and the pro- 
ceeds devoted to the building of the Mary Dela- 
mar Kinnear Monnett Memorial Building, known 
as Monnett Hall, two fine brick buildings just 
across the street from the Training School. The 
first of these w^as erected in 1908, and into it joy- 
fully moved the ^^ Extension Department'' of the 
School. The second wing was erected during the 
winter of 1909-10, and its opening was almost 
coincident with the close of its founder's life. She 
had been growing daily more and more feeble, 
but from her window had watched with unfailing 
interest, as the walls went up brick by brick. 
One day in January, accompanied by a few 
friends, she went to inspect the building. With 
great pleasure she examined the plumbing, the 
furnace, the electric lighting, peering into closets 
and pantry, and finally expressed herself as en- 
tirely satisfied. In great good humor she re- 
turned to her room. It was her last outing. Next 
morning she was stricken with paralysis, and lay 



150 THE BUILDERS 

for two months, recovering consciousness only 
for brief intervals. Late in March she passed 
quietly away. The beautiful funeral service was 
held in the chapel of the Training School. It 
was two days before Easter, and ranks of tall 
Easter lilies hung over the casket and looked 
into the face of the quiet sleeper, whose life had 
seemed as pure and innocent as they. After the 
sermon, Mrs. Meyer spoke touchingly of the 
beautiful life just closed, then the casket was 
borne away by six white-robed seniors. Students 
and friends as they followed felt that the service 
had been a benediction. Miss Monnett had 
learned, as few do, the rich rewards of giving. 
She counted it all joy that she could live the last 
few years of her life in close contact with the 
work that her splendid gift had so abundantly 
aided. She was always deeply interested in the 
students, and the incidents of their field work. 
At one time she heard a reformed and converted 
man give his experience and came back to her 
room deeply moved. At the close of the day 
Mrs. Meyer was sitting with her and the con- 
versation turned to the story of the man's won- 
derful conversion, and the thought that the 
buildings she had erected were to help in the 
training of women for this work of rescuing the 
lost. Her emotions overcame her habitual reti- 
cence, and bringing her hands down again and 
again on the arms of her chair, she exclaimed 
Bapturously, ''Oh, I'm so glad! I'm so glad! I 



EOOM TO GROW 151 

just want to go home and tell mother all about 
it." She has gone home, and, let us hope, has 
**told mother." Must we not believe that the 
joys of Paradise are heightened by the knowl- 
edge of good deeds done here? 

A quotation copied by her own hand and 
found among her papers affords an inside 
glimpse of the workings of this quiet and humble 
woman. 

Do right, and God's recompense to you wiU be 
the power to do more right. Give, and God's reward 
to you will be the spirit of giving more. Blessed 
spirit, for it is the spirit of God himself, whose life 
Is the blessedness of giving! Love, and God will pay 
you with the capacity for more love. Love is 
Heaven; Love is God within you. 

And this other, which we may almost read as 
a prophecy: 

So the blessed dead still live in holy helpfulness 
to the living. Who can say what starry influences 
do not rain upon us from the High Regions of help? 
And in some nobility of service we cannot now imag- 
ine, we may be set by our Master to higher tasks 
than those of time. 

Surely if any of the ^'blessed dead" live in 
''holy helpfulness," it will be those who, like 
her, have learned in this life the beauty and joy 
of living for others. 

But once more and for the last time within the 
limit of these chronicles had arisen the cry for 
more room. Thanks to the splendid forethought 
of Mr. Harris, there was still ground space on 



152 THE BUILDERS 

which to build. The enlarged dormitory facil- 
ities had brought together nearly two hundred 
students, and class-rooms and dining-room were 
inadequate for the growing company. A com- 
modious chapel was clearly the next requirement. 
]\ir. Harris was at this time in California and 
from there Mr. Meyer received a summons to the 
land of flowers to confer with him among other 
things about the maturing of plans, a summons 
not unwelcome to the over-worked man of many 
affairs. He went and spent a month in frequent 
consultation with Mr. Harris, building on paper 
and in visions the beautiful chapel which waa 
soon to become a reality in brick and stone. He 
returned with architect's plans approved and 
authority to go ahead with the construction of 
Harris Hall Chapel, to cost $50,000. About the 
same time Mrs. Annie M. Swift made a contribu- 
tion of $5,000 to the library which her husband, 
Gustavus F. Swift, had begun in 1900. The 
architect's plan contemplated a chapel fronting 
on Fiftieth Street with a large dining-room be- 
neath, and the library in the rear. Work was 
at once begun. When commencement week came 
for the class of '09, the walls had reached the 
top of the basement story, and a rough floor had 
been laid for the convenience of the workmen* 
Sunday afternoon Mr. Meyer entered the dining- 
room as the family were at table and proposed 
a pilgrimage to the new chapel. Rising from the 
tables they filed out two by two in long proces- 



EOOM TO GROW 153 

sion, up the stairs, through the halls and cor- 
ridors and across the rude bridge that connected 
the old buildings with the new. They sang as 
they went, keeping step at first to the inspiring 
rythm of *' Onward Christian Soldiers,'' the line 
flowing entirely around the inside of the low 
walls and encircling the space. The wind ruffled 
the hair on uncovered heads and fluttered the 
gowns of white. Around them were carpenters' 
shavings and mortar beds, and above towered 
the high derricks. Then some one led with '^ Jesus 
Shall Reign." Strong young voices took it up 
and made the melody ring out, until curious 
faces looked out from neighboring doors and win- 
dows, and the passers-by along the street paused 
in astonishment to listen to the heart-thrilling 
prophecy. 

Jesus shall reign where'er the sun 
Doth his successive journeys run. 
His kingdom spread from shore to shore, 
Till moons shall wax and wane no more. 

Then Mrs. Meyer stepped forward, picking 
her way carefully over the loose floor, and spoke 
in her heartsome fashion of the School, its past 
and its future, exhorting her '^Dear girls" to 
continued loyalty to the ideas for which it stood. 
Then in prayer she dedicated the new building 
to God. ^^ Praise God from Whom All Blessings 
Flow ' ' seemed the only outlet for the enthusiasm, 
as the procession wended its way back again to 



154 THE BUILDERS 

the familiar rooms. It was a typical bit of Train- 
ing School life. 

The chapel was completed soon for the open- 
ing of the fall term, and the students of 1910 
were the first to enjoy its fresh beauty. A fine 
$5,000 pipe organ and a sweet-toned piano added 
the finishing touches. In the vestibule was placed 
a tablet bearing the inscription : 



THIS CHAPEL 

HAS BEEN ERECTED BY 

NORMAN WAIT HARRIS 

AND 

EMMA GALE HARRIS 

AS A TESTIMONIAL OF THE 

EFFICIENT AND DEVOTED 

SERVICES OF 

JOSIAH SHELLY MEYER 

AND 

LUCY RIDER MEYER 

IN THE ESTABLISHMENT 

AND DEVELOPMENT OF 

THE DEACONESS WORK OF THE 

METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 

—A. D. 1909.— 



The beautiful Swift Library Room, removed 
from the bustle of the School and the noise of 
the street, is a favorite retreat where well se- 
lected and standard books afford opportunities 
for the '^required readings" and research work 



ROOM TO GROW 155 

demanded by the modern lecture system in which 
most of the work of the school is conducted. 

This chapel and library building, though it 
was really completed a few months before the 
second wing of Monnett Hall, may well be re- 
garded as the crown and seal of the quarter cen- 
tury 's work, filling as it does the last space in 
the lot presented by Mr. Harris in 1894. What 
the future may bring in the way of new growth 
lies hidden in the mists of coming years; but a 
hint may be found in the fact that the land has 
been purchased extending on Fiftieth Street 
from the present limits of Harris Hall to Prairie 
Avenue, while a demand for better housing for 
the gymnasium and the departments of indus- 
trial work are beginning to be felt. But what- 
ever the future has in store, one can only look 
back over the years and exclaim in wonder, 
^'What hath God wrought" by the hand of will- 
ing workers ! Workers together with God — that 
was the watchword of success. The times were 
ready, the fields were white, and the man and 
woman were not disobedient to the heavenly 
vision. 

Gladly do we pause to pay a deserved tribute 
to the splendid corps of teachers and helpers, 
who, without a dollar of salary, some even pay- 
ing their own expenses, working only for the joy 
of doing good, have held up the hands of the 
founders of this work from the first. Many, 
most of these have been graduates of the School, 



156 THE BUILDERS 

and have caught from its teaching the spirit 
which they in turn have taught to others. The 
list is too long to mention each, but without their 
untiring efforts the School could never have at- 
tained its present eminence and accomplished the 
work which it has. 

And then the long roll of students that have 
gone out to lives of beautiful service — the heart 
warms at the list. They are found by Afric's 
sunny fountains and India's coral strand and 
beyond to the further sea, wherever missions are 
known. The mere record of names brings back 
the thought of heart histories that have throbbed 
through the routine of daily lessons and work-^ 
the glad young lives joyfully consecrated to 
service for the King; the perplexed and bewil- 
dered ones who have found here the first secret 
of really happy living; the saddened ones who 
have been given ' ' beauty for ashes ' ' ; the heroic 
ones who have faced opposition and entreaty, 
but, steadfastly following the heavenly vision, 
have won angry or disappointed relatives to sym- 
pathize and help. They are all embalmed in the 
unwritten history of the School. 

To hundreds, entering the School has been a 
crisis, a Valley of Decision, as well as the open- 
ing up of a new and richer experience. True, 
becoming a student carries with it no pledge to 
enter special work, and many take the course 
merely for its intrinsic value in the development 
of character, and to fit them for larger useful- 



ROOM TO GROW 157 

ness in the ordinary spheres of women's work; 
yet to many it means the acceptance of a call to 
separate themselves from the usual avocations 
of womanhood and enter fields of special and 
often heroic service for God and Humanity. 

As to the teaching, the spirit of breadth and 
conservatism which characterized the School at 
the beginning, has been steadily maintained, 
though this policy has sometimes called down 
the criticism of extremists. The Bible has al- 
ways been the most attractive subject in the 
whole wide curriculum. It is taught not only 
with scientific lucidity and breadth but with a 
spiritual power that results in holy lives and 
consecrated purposes. ^^The Bible has become a 
new book to me, " is a testimony given scores of 
times. Naturally there has been a steady ad- 
vance in the literary standards of the School. 
At present, the degree of Master of Christian 
Service is given to those who complete the work 
in the '^ Graduate Division," diplomas in the oth- 
er divisions. The School is not a feminized the- 
ological seminary, but a school for the helpful 
all-round development of character — a school 
where the highest standards of Christian life and 
experience should be maintained, not running 
into mysticism or asceticism on the one hand or 
mere humanitarianism on the other. A wide 
range of religious doctrine is presented, often by 
devotees, and the greatest freedom of thought 
encouraged, but the School has never been made 



158 THE BUILDERS 

a field for the exploitation of any religious dog- 
ma to the exclusion of other truth. Tendencies 
to morbid introspection meet a neutralizing influ- 
ence in the spirit of healthy, practical Christian- 
ity which pervades the entire institution. The 
idea of the social mission of the Church which 
is so stirring Christendom has naturally affected 
the spirit of the institution. The course in Scien- 
tific Temperance is particularly worthy of men- 
tion. It attracted special attention in the Inter- 
Governmental Anti-Alcoholic Congress at Lon- 
don in 1909, being so well received there that the 
Congress voted a request that a copy of the out- 
line should be placed in the hands of every one 
of its thousand delegates, who represented ever^j 
civilized government in the world. 

If cause is sought for the marvelous success 
of this School, other than that of divine leading, 
the one most apparent is the judicious use of 
printer's ink. While the leaders were asking 
God to give them favor with the people, they 
took care that the people should be informed of 
their needs and invited to become helpers in car- 
rying on the work. From the beginning, in the 
days of the packing-box desks, a steady stream 
of literature has gone out from the School. 
Tracts, letters, folders, books — in later years it 
would not be extravagant to say by the ton — • 
have been scattered broadcast. The Deaconess 
Advocate has been pushed to a circulation of 
32,000. Twenty-two thousand copies of the little 



ROOM TO GROW 159 

book on Deaconesses, by Mrs. Meyer, eighteen 
thousand on ''What Happened to Ted," by Isa- 
belle Horton ; twenty-four thousand ' ' Where the 
White Ties Lead," by Annie Fellows Johnston; 
ten thousand of ''How Hetty Became a Deacon- 
ess" — this affords a significant glimpse of the 
way literature has been supplied to the public. 
As a result of all this a steady tide of popular 
interest and sympathy sets toward the School. 

Incidents, funny, romantic, and pathetic have 
developed from these appeals to the popular 
heart. One may be given here, partly for its 
human interest, and partly as an illustration of 
how, in our complex lives, the most single-minded 
acts may produce a tangle of results distant and 
unlooked for. 

A leaflet was issued from the Training School 
bearing the picture of a nurse deaconess whose 
naturally winsome face was made more attrac- 
tive by the fetching little nurse's cap. Twenty 
thousand of these folders were scattered over the 
length and breadth of the land, and in a distant 
city one fell into the hands of a wealthy and sus- 
ceptible bachelor. He gazed upon the pictured 
face and dwelt on the stories of unselfish service 
on the part of the Sisters until, believing the 
original must be as good as she was fair, he de- 
termined to win her if possible from the career 
of a ^^protestant nun" to be the queen of his 
own fireside. By writing to the Chicago offices 



160 THE BUILDERS 

he learned the name and present location of the 
owner of the face. 

Soon after the Deaconess Home in that distant 
city began to receive gifts from this gentleman. 
They were promptly and gratefully acknowl- 
edged by the Superintendent of the Home, who 
did not dream of ulterior designs on the part of 
the donor regarding one of her flock. Soon, 
when his name had become pleasantly familiar, 
he visited the city, some hundreds of miles from 
his own, and presenting himself at the Deaconess 
Home asked for an interview with the young 
nurse. His intentions, altogether straight-for- 
ward and manly, must have been apparent at the 
first call, for when he came the second time he 
was met in the parlor by the Superintendent, 
who informed him as tactfully as possible that 
farther adventures in that direction would be 
useless, as the young woman considered her con- 
secration to deaconess service a life mission. The 
disappointed suitor returned to his home, and 
the incident, so far as the immediate actors were 
concerned, was closed. 

But somehow it had leaked out, as such things 
will, in the immediate circle of the deaconess' 
friends, and later, on a visit of the nurse to her 
alma mater, she was mischievously assailed re- 
garding it. She replied austerely that she felt 
that her call to be a deaconess had come from 
God and was not lightly to be set aside for any 
call from man. Her lofty ideal formed a subject 



ROOM TO GROW 161 

of conversation in a little group of four students 
gathered one evening in the room of one of the 
number. Their hearts caught the thrill of loyal 
devotion to duty, and as each was a candidate 
for deaconess orders on graduation, they mutu- 
ally pledged each other to a similar course. One 
of the four was at the time receiving some at- 
tentions from a young gentleman in the city and 
she conscientiously informed him of their com- 
pact. It chanced that the young man belonged 
to the staff of one of the big Chicago dailies, and 
his reportorial instinct for a ^^ story" overcame 
any private chagrin he might have felt. What 
was the amazement of the School faculty, on 
opening the morning paper, to read in big head- 
lines— ''Vowed to Celibacy!" ''Students of the 
Chicago Training School take a Pledge never to 
Marry," etc. No time was lost in explaining to 
the editorial staff that no such movement had the 
official sanction of the School, and the young 
ladies were advised against the taking of im- 
mutable vows, as opposed to the spirit of Pro- 
testantism. And then and there was nipped in 
the bud the possibility of a future Celibate Sis- 
terhood, named, perhaps, after their patron 
saint, the "Sisters of Saint Augusta." 

But there were other and more helpful results 
following this persistent seed sowing — results 
that seem almost marvelous in their providences. 
A torn leaf of the Deaconess Advocate flut- 
tered out of the window and was blown along 



162 THE BUILDERS 

the sidewalk. It was picked up by a man who 
called next day at the School, made a gift to 
the work and became from that time an inter- 
ested friend and helper. A leaf wrapped around 
a parcel fell into the hands of a young woman 
who by it became a member of the school and 
gave herself to Christian work. A young man 
in a printing office setting type for an article 
regarding Christian service, was led to seek a 
Christian life. A copy of the paper was sent by 
a friend to a busy society woman who for weeks 
scarcely gave it a glance as it was tossed about 
with other papers on her table. But there came a 
time when a story on the first page caught her eye 
as she pondered over a tragedy that had touched 
her own life, and by means of it a young girl 
turned from her father 's door found shelter and 
friends at a crisis in her history. A woman left 
a copy on the counter of a village store where 
she had stopped on her way from the postoffice ; 
the store-keeper read and returned it with fifty 
cents for a year's subscription, the beginning of 
a steadfast interest. Another copy, lost on the 
way home from the office, was found by a young 
woman who brought it to the house to which it 
was addressed, saying she had never before heard 
of deaconess work, but it was just what she de- 
sired to do, as she had long intended to give her- 
self to some form of Christian service. If this 
involuntary seed-sowing produced such results, 



ROOM TO GROW 163 

what could not be expected of wise and contin- 
ued sowing on prepared soil ? 

As a result of this combination of faith in 
Grod's providence, sagacious business methods and 
untiring energy, the School not only stands as 
pioneer of all similar institutions of the Church, 
but it has contributed largely to the creation of 
sentiment in behalf of higher education for reli- 
gious leaders and teachers. It still stands easily 
at the front in preparing women for Christian 
service. During the twenty-five years of its exis- 
tence it has enrolled nearly three thousand stu- 
dents and sent out more than one thousand five 
hundred of these into some form of active work — • 
about two hundred and fifty to the foreign fields 
alone. It is hardly conceivable that any have 
entered and gone out without feeling an impulse 
to better and higher living. In addition to the 
regular school work, a Correspondence Course is 
carried on in which several hundred women are 
pursuing a course of reading and Bible study m 
their ov/n homes under the guidance of skilled 
teachers. For all this work the School employs 
a corps of fourteen resident and twenty-five non- 
resident instructors, and a large body of office 
helpers and secretaries, besides scores of special 
lecturers, including men and women of world- 
wide fame. It is using property to the value of 
over $300,000 above all indebtedness. 

During the twenty-five years of the history of 
the School, its current expenses have all been 



164 THE BUILDERS 

paid, having amounted to $276,847.27. There 
have been 143,410 calls made by its students. 
The aggregate number of children taught is 
363,613. 

It is to be remembered that these statistics in- 
clude the early years when the work was exceed- 
ingly small. The budget for the School expenses 
of last year alone was considerable over $30,000. 
At this rate, and making no allowance for the 
growth of the school, the current expenses for the 
next twenty-five years will approach the $1,000,- 
000 mark. 

And yet, with all the work of this and similar 
schools, the interest taken in new and practical 
phases of Christian social service and the pecu- 
liar adaptability of women to this line of work, 
create a demand for trained and competent 
Christian workers far in excess of the supply. 
Surely there are still thousands of young women 
with time and talent unused or not used to the 
best advantage, who, if they could but be roused 
to a sense of the responsibility that comes with 
the possession of any talent, and the real joy of 
a life of service, would gladly respond to the 
calL 



PICTURES FROM SCHOOL LIFE 



I WILL FOLLOW THEE. 

Lord, keep me from being afraid of Thee and Thy 
leading. Help me to believe with a sincerity that 
will fill my life with constant joy, that thou art all 
wisdom and all love, and that thou art infinitely more 
concerned that my life shall be happy and successful 
than I can be myself. Thou art my Father! my own 
Father! A loving Father, even an earthly father, 
would never lead his child into a real darkness, and 
ean I not trust Thee, no matter how strange may 
seem Thy way for me? So help me to surrender 
myself absolutely into Thy safe and loving hands; 
and help me to keep always the solemn promise I 
now make again, that by Thy grace I will follow 
Thee whithersoever Thou goest. — Lucy Rider Meyer 
in ''Some Little Prayers.'' 



VI. 

PICTURES FROM SCHOOL LIFE. 

You are awakened by the restless chirp of the 
sparrows outside your window. Your senses 
come back drowsily one by one. It is early dawn 
— this is a room of the Training School, and — - 
yes — it is Easter morning. 

With this thought there comes, not music — 
rather a thought of music ; or is it the echo of a 
melody heard in a dream ? You strain your ears 
to listen. It floats away into silence, comes again, 
steals upon your ear, a silver thread of sound in 
the far, far distance. Then it drifts into cer- 
tainty. Voices are singing — sweet, clear wom- 
en's voices. It comes nearer, clearer. You can 
distinguish the notes, the words : 

Low in the grave he lay, Jesus my Saviour, 
Waiting the coming day, Jesus, my Lord. 

Again it floats away and dies down through 
the corridors, but not for long. You hear it 
again approaching, and you are glad, just as 
when you recover a treasure that you thought 
was lost. Nearer, louder, more exultant, now the 
voices are just outside your door. How joy- 
fully they ring out the news. 

167 



168 THE BUILDERS 

Up from the grave He arose, 

With a mighty triumph o'er His foes. 

He arose, a victor from the dark domain. 

And He lives forever with His saints to reign. 

He arose. He arose, Hallelujah, Christ arose. 

You understand by this time that the School 
choir is bearing in song along the halls and up 
and down the stairs the joyous message of the 
Easter. You know it is no perfunctory task. 
Notes like those come only from hearts that have 
thrilled to the joy of the resurrection. And 
then you think of that other Easter, and af the 
little procession of pallid, stricken women that 
trailed up the slopes of Olivet in the dim dawn, 
to find — the empty tomb, and the Angel. You 
wonder if their joy as they return could have 
found expression in sweeter notes. 

And now it is floating away again. You strain 
your ears for the last note — 

Death could not keep his prey, Jesus my Saviour, 
He tore the bars away, Jesus my Lord. 

As the music dies into silence a great hush set- 
tled down over the building, a silence that can 
be felt. Even the sparrows seem to have softened 
their strident voices, and with the last notes of 
the hymn still lingering in the innermost cham- 
bers of your consciousness, you feel the call to 
pray. Fifteen, twenty minutes pass, and then 
the sharp burr of an electric bell from some- 
where breaks the spell. The heavenly vision dis- 
solves, but not its holy influence. Like the knock- 



PICTURES FROM SCHOOL LIFE 169 

ing at the gate in Macbeth, the summons shuts 
the door of the soul's inner life with a jar, and 
suddenly you are in the outer world among peo- 
ple who bustle and chatter, and eat and drink, 
and are innocently merry. 

Doors open and shut, foot-steps hurry through 
the halls, cheerful voices greet one another, 
groups of girls gather into rivulets, and rivulets 
into a stream, pouring one way, down the stairs 
to the breakfast room. 

It is not every morning that the tide of song 
floats up to your very door as on this Easter, 
but every day the silent hour of the morning 
watch is ushered in by some grand old hymn 
sung in the hall. Just a stanza, sometimes, but 
enough to call the soul from worldly cares into 
the secret place. 

There are mysterious doings in the region of 
the parlor. In the post office toward which the 
whole tribe of students gravitates at least three 
times every day, a big poster is attracting atten- 
tion. It represents a tree, whose spreading 
branches are laden with wise looking owls or — • 
no — at second glance they are not owls but girls, 
in college caps and gowQS. Information below is 
to the effect that the ^*A" Girls, the Graduate 
Division, will entertain their sisters and the fac- 
ulty in the parlors on Friday evening, which, ac- 
cording to the custom of the School, is set apart 
for social recreation. 



170 THE BUILDERS 

Naturally something exceptionally good is ex- 
pected. At the hour the spacious parlor is packed 
with an expectant crowd. The middle space is 
filled with chairs, the rear devoted to standing 
room only, while in front the girls dispose them- 
selves comfortably on the floor with the aid of 
innumerable sofa pillows. 

Part first of the entertainment is intended to 
represent the '^Eeveries of a Bachelor'' on the 
eve of his wedding day; the stage represents a 
cozy bachelor's den in which the young man sits 
meditating for the last time over the pictured 
faces of all the girls with whom he has ever been 
in love. Then he will make a bonfire of them on 
the altar of his divinity of the present. He falls 
asleep in the midst of his reflections. They all 
appear, winding in dreamy procession round and 
round his chair — ^his child-love, the saucy hoy- 
den, the college chum, the golfing maiden, the 
fascinating young widow, the dark-eyed Spanish 
beauty, a demure deaconess, an Indian maid, a 
charming Dutch Gretchen, the dashing ^* cow- 
girl" — ^they wind about his chair and vanish, 
leaving the field in possession of the dream-bride 
of the morrow in filmy veil and orange blossoms. 
It is a beautiful living picture. It is simply 
marvelous what amazing results in the way of 
costumes and setting can be evolved on short 
notice from the demure-looking array of trunks 
that line the corridors of the dormitories on the 
upper floors. 



PICTURES FROM SCHOOL LIFE 171 

The audience testifies its approval in unmis- 
takable fashion. Then bright college songs are 
rendered with dash and spirit and the curtain 
rises on Part II, a rollicking, extemporized 
drama of college life, wherein the much abused 
freshman, the upstart sophomore, the jolly junior 
and the lordly and self-satisfied senior meet at a 
clandestine chafing-dish party, which is inter- 
rupted in time-honored fashion by the arrival of 
one of the teachers. 

The curtain is drawn on a storm of hand- 
clapping, and the proud entertainers mingle 
with the audience, their class loyalty finding vent 
in an exultant college yell, 

Inigo, Minigo, Hanego, Sacta, 
Boom-de-la! hee — hoo! 
Che-ha, che-ha, 
Che-ha-ha-ha 
"A" girls! 

This is accepted as a challange and quickly 
comes the defiant response : 

"B's and C's! B's and C's! 
Who are, who are, who are these? 
They are the salt of the Training School, 
A's are exceptions — these are the rule! 
Rah— Rah— Rah!" 

Then the Juniors are heard from, and the) 
sharp staccatto notes and the weird trills bring 
each a fresh burst of loyalty to class or club, 
until at last all unite in a unanimous 



172 THE BUILDERS 

"C.T.S., C.T.S., beloved alway, 
God bless our School!" 

The hilarious crowd, their study-tired brains 
brushed clear of cobwebs by hearty, good-natured 
laughter, dissolves along the halls and stairways, 
and when the ten o 'clock bell sounds its warning, 
darkness and silence reign supreme. 

The time has come for the last students' 
prayer meeting of the year. Times have changed 
since the little group used to gather like one big 
family in the principal's room, sitting in chairs, 
on the bed, or on the floor as circumstances per- 
mitted — when they shared with the teachers the 
financial cares of the institution, and prayed in 
one breath for grace to meet special trials and 
money with which to pay the grocer's bill. 

It is a big meeting now, and of necessity some- 
what formal. In addition to the students, some 
of the *^old girls" have **come home" to attend 
the closing exercises of the year, and there are 
other visiting friends ; among the latter a French 
missionary from Algiers, who, in his picturesque 
Musselman costume, has just been entertaining a 
group in the students ' parlor with an account of 
his work among the Mohammedans. 

There are a few other men, friends of the stu- 
dents or the School. Ton catch a glimpse of the 
silvery head of ^'' Uncle Wardle," shining like a 
big white calla, and crowning a serene old face. 
It is hard for a Training School girl to tell which 



PICTURES FROM SCHOOL LIFE 173 

she is reminded of most quickly at sight of that 
benevolent countenance, various and sundry 
marsh-mallow roasts for which the owner has 
stood sponsor, or his unfailing injunction, **Meet 
me in heaven. ' ' 

The atmosphere is tense with feeling. For 
weeks these women have been wrestling in secret 
places, and making decisions that to them are big 
with destiny. Some have wept at the severing of 
home ties, some have shrunk from accepting re- 
sponsibilities that seemed too heavy for their 
strength, some have given up the dream of a 
chosen calling to accept a station of humble but 
necessary routine. 

The hymns for weeks back have been an un- 
conscious expression of the inner life of the 
School. '^ Guide me Thou Great Jehovah," 
**He Leadeth Me," and ^^ Jesus, Saviour, Pilot 
Me" have floated through the halls at morning 
watch and chapel service. And now as the stu- 
dents and guests are gathering in chapel the 
deep-toned organ is softly pouring out the notes 
of ''He Knows, IMy Heavenly Father Knows." 

The organ ceases and the room grows quiet. 
All faces are turned expectantly toward Mrs. 
Meyer, who leads the meeting to-night. The 
opening hymn is announced, the organ prelude 
rolls into the stirring notes of Luther's grand 
old hymn, ''The Son of God Goes Forth to 
"War !" How the words ring out from these hun- 
dreds of prepared hearts and trained voices. 



174 THE BUILDERS 

*The Son of God goes forth to war, a kingly crown 

to gain, 
His blood red banner streams afar, who follows in 

His train; 
Who best can drink his cup of woe, triumphant over 

pain, 
Who patient bears his cross below, he follows in His 

train." 

Other hynms of consecration and service fol- 
low. Then the leader in a brief and tender talk 
strikes the key-note of the meeting, ''Fear not, 
ye are of more value than many sparrows:'* 
''Fear not, it is the Father's good pleasure to 
give you the kingdom." How soothingly the 
"fear nots" fall upon timid and troubled hearts. 
How encouragingly they appeal to the braver 
ones, and how a renewed sense of a loving Fath- 
er 's care, and the certainty of His strong enfold- 
ing, come to every one during the tiny sermon. 
Then the "meeting is open." For the next hour, 
in prayer or testimony or song, the tide of heav- 
enly feeling surges from heart to heart, and they 
are "one in Christ." Very earnest are the peti- 
tions that go up for God's blessing on the School, 
and His manifest presence in the hearts of His 
waiting children. So earnest and expectant are 
the requests that it seems but a continuation of 
the prayer when, "Oh, for a vision of Jesus" 
breaks the momentary silence. Softened voices 
join in the words, and many must have realized 
the answer in their hearts. 



PICTURES FROM SCHOOL LIFE 175 

I have found it a blessed truth that nothing can 
separate us from the love of Christ. I feel that He 
has led me every step of the way, not always in the 
path that I would have chosen, but always in the one 
best for me. I praise Him for all. 

''Hallelujah, Thine the Glory/' is the ''amen'' 
from responsive hearts and lips. 

I can never express my gratitude for the years 
spent in this School. I feel the sadness of separa- 
tion, but I rejoice, for it is the sweetest separation 
that could possibly be, when each is going out to 
do work for the Master; and v/e shall meet again, 
when the day's work is done. 

It is a timid and faltering voice that takes up 
the theme. 

I can't say the things that are in my heart, but I 
shall try all my life to be true to the vision of Christ 
that I have gained here. 

Another says, 

I praise God for the hard lessons I have had to 
learn, and the hard struggles that have come to me, 
for I know they have helped me to grow stronger. 

She is not alone in this experience, and 

"Blest be the tempest, kind the storm, 
That drives me nearer home." 

testifies to the sympathetic experience of scores 
of others. 

Then one speaks with a foreign accent, choos- 
ing her words carefully: 



176 THE BUILDERS 

I've been thinking of the time I came to this 
School two years ago. I was a stranger and all alone 
in the city. I felt it was very hard, but now this is a 
place full of friends and like a home to me; best of 
all, I have been blessed with the friendship of Jesus. 

The two years I have spent in this school have 
been the happiest of my life. I have felt like Peter 
on the Mount of Transfiguration, that I would like to 
build my tent and stay longer, but I remember how 
the poor and sick and demon-possessed were waiting 
for them down below, and I feel sure that there is 
work for me too to do. So I am glad to go, and glad 
that the Master will be with me there, as well as on 
the mountain top. 

*'0h, Master, let me walk with Thee, 
In lowly paths of service free." 

is the echo of the thought, in the sv^eet voices of 
the singers. 

It is one of the honored guests v^ho speaks 
next, one who, at the head of a great institution, 
has felt the brunt of the battle. 

Twelve years ago I went out from this blessed 
School into untried paths. I have met trials, but the 
Master has been with me. I have encountered diffi- 
culties, but I have learned to lift up mine eyes to the 
hills from whence I have found help. I have never 
for one hour regretted that I was led to consecrate 
my life in this way, and every year I praise God for 
the privilege of service. 

Then a slender little woman speaks, and 
though the voice is low and gentle, you hear 
through it the note of decision. She is going to 
a distant city to take a position of great responsi- 
bility. 



PICTURES FROM SCHOOL LIFE 177 

I have been thinking that if it is God*s work we 
are engaged in, we have the assurance of His pres- 
ence and His help in the doing of it. I have no 
strength of my own, but I have faith in His promise 
to help me. 

As I go from school, I shall carry this thought for 
my inspiration — "Christ works through us, and noth- 
ing is small that is done in His name." 

I have had a new vision in the years I have spent 
here. I am glad and happy to begin work. Tho Mas- 
ter called me to the work, and I know He will not 
leave me alone. 

Another old student speaks with shining face : 

I could cry just because I'm so happy — happy to 
come home and look into your faces, old and new. 
I'm glad for all the experiences of the six years 
since I left the School. You new girls are being 
pushed out now, but you will come back by and by 
with joy and gladness. The best lessons come to us 
through the hard battles and the pain of life. You 
will need to say: 

*1 will be strong, for there is much to suffer; 
I will be brave, for there is much to bear." 

I am not asking God for easy work, but for 
strength to do the hard things. 

"Where He Leads, I'll Follow/' the familiar 
song again voices the consecration of a hundred 
hearts. 

I came to this school with fear and trembling, but 
I can never be thankful enough that I came. I have 
learned wonderful lessons here. 

Another speaks and all listen eagerly, for they 
realize that the words come from a tried heart. 



178 THE BUILDERS 

The speaker is a leader in her class, and her 
beautiful young life, full of promise, has not yet 
been called or definitely consecrated to special 
service : 

I have had a new sense of my personal responsi- 
bility, a wonderful vision of what life may be, since 
I have been here; and now I am ready to say, in the 
strength of the Master, "I'll go where you want me 
to go, dear Lord." 

I'll never forget the struggle I had before I came 
to this school, but I wish every girl could know how 
glad I am that I came. I can never tell what it has 
done for me. 

"And I can never tell what it has done for me, 
either," responds a timid voice, ''but I am going to 
try and work it out in my life." 

Another who has been years ^^in the field" 
says reminiscently : 

I wondered when I came here what work I was 
fitted for. It seemed impossible that God could use 
me for special service; but I am glad to say that He 
can, and He has. I believe He can use all kinds of 
workers for the advancement of His kingdom. 

Mrs. Meyer was reminded of the early days, by 
the testimony of the students who had spoken of 
their struggles; and she spoke with an expres- 
sion made of a smile and a tear. **I remember, 
in the first year of the School, I saw one of the 
girls looking rather sad as she was helping to 
clear away the table after dinner, and I said to 
her sympathetically, *Are you homesick?' To my 
surprise the question seemed just to open the 



PICTURES FROM SCHOOL LIFE 179 

flood-gates ; her eyes filled and her lips quivered, 
but she replied, scraping vigorously at her plate 
while the tears slipped over her cheeks, ^Yes'm, 
I'm homesick — but I'm going to stay!' '' 

The hour had come for closing, and scarcely a 
fourth of those present had found time to testify. 
'*How many would like to speak if there was 
more time," asked Mrs. Meyer, and hands were 
raised all over the room. ^^Well, we must not 
run over time, but suppose we put our testimony 
into the closing song and sing it together." 

I'll live for Him who died for me. 
How happy then my life shall be; 
I'll live for Him who died for me. 
My Saviour and my God. 

The words were sung with a spirit and fervor 
that gave them weight as a * ' testimony, ' ' and the 
meeting closed. 

It was announced that the Rev. AVm. Butler, 
Missionary from Mexico, was present, and if any 
of the students cared to remain for a few mo- 
ments after the meeting, he would speak to them 
of his work. The great Laymen's Missionary 
Convention had brought an unusual number of 
distinguished visitors to the city, and not a few 
to the School, affording the students rare oppor- 
tunities to see and hear these heroes of the Cross. 
Regular class hours could not be arranged for 
all, but little special gatherings like this and the 
one in the parlor that preceded the meeting had 
been occasionally held. With unabated interest, 



180 THE BUILDERS 

nearly a hundred students gathered near the 
front of the chapel and listened for a half -hour 
more to a story of Missions in Mexico. The 
speaker was a son of the great missionary, Dr. 
Wm. Butler, who, twenty-five years before, stood 
up in a committee-meeting at Lake Bluff and 
pleaded for the establishment of a Training 
School, and whose address at that time seemed 
to be the ''word in season" that crystallized half- 
formed sentiment into definite action. The 
younger Dr. Butler had brought from Mexico 
three young women to enter the school, and ex- 
pressed in unqualified terms his approval of the 
work. 

For five days a week, from Monday till Fri- 
day, you may find students immersed in studies 
and class-room work from nine till twelve, and 
usually for an hour or two in the afternoon. In 
the audience room of the chapel you may find 
Miss Schoenberger behind the reader's desk, ex- 
pounding Old Testament history to seventy-five 
or eighty girls, each with head bowed over her 
tablet industriously taking notes. At the same 
time in the South gallery class-room a select 
group is gathered around a teacher, who is dis- 
cussing problems of poverty and methods of re- 
lief. In the North gallery. Miss Chappell is 
leading her class along sacred paths as she stud- 
ies with them the Life of Christ. Sometimes the 
walls ring with melody as Miss Dalbey drills her 



PICTURES FROM SCHOOL LIFE 181 

chorus class. Sometimes the chapel is filled to 
the doors to listen to Dr. Parkhurst's luminous 
exposition of Scripture, putting new life into fa- 
miliar pages. Sometimes the whole School, a 
good representation of the teachers and office 
force included, gather on short notice to listen to 
some particularly noted divine, missionary, or 
philanthropist, who has been captured on his 
journey across the country, and persuaded to 
contribute of his knowledge on some subject not 
down in the Bulletin. For the most part, days 
are passed in serious work. 

But Saturday is the day of dust caps and 
aprons. Books are laid aside and a great, cheer- 
ful bustle pervades the building. Windows are 
opened, rugs are shaken and the last rolling fluff 
of dust is chased relentlessly from its hiding 
place. In the afternoon the great house, shining 
spick and span like a freshly washed child, sits 
down to the enjoyment of its half holiday. Down 
stairs in the laundry in an atmosphere of glim- 
mering gas and steaming suds, girls who prefer 
washing their own garments to paying laundry 
bills, come and go; and many an illuminating 
'^interpretation of Christian Doctrine'' occurs 
as girls touch elbows over the tubs or wait for 
their turn at the ironing table. Sage bits of 
philosophy and experience not of the class meet- 
ing type may be heard here. One day something 
had occurred — a misunderstanding, a little colli- 
sion of interest, a thoughtless statement misin- 



182 THE BUILDERS 

terpreted in transmission — one of those combina- 
tions of mistakes and cross purposes which will 
occur wherever human beings live and work to- 
gether, and which really seem to point to the 
intervention of some malevolent spirit of mis* 
chief. It threatened to bring open rupture be- 
tween some of the leading spirits of the School. 
It was the subject of a low-voiced discussion in a 
little group of students, ' ' She was awfully hurt, 
I know it. I saw her face as she left the room." 
**Well, I don't think she ought to m-m-m — " 
''Oh, did you know Miss L — . told m-m-m — " 
And then out of the muffled hum comes a 
voice, not loud, but clear and decisive. 

''Well, girls, it isn't going to help any for us 
to talk about it. We all know they both meant 
right, and if we keep still they will probably get 
things fixed up without us ; but if we go on talk- 
ing we may get things mixed up worse. I move 
we drop the subject and not speak of it again to 
anybody. ' ' 

"That's so." "That's right." The little 
group broke up, and nothing more was ever 
heard of the occurrence that for an hour threat- 
ened the peace of the institution. 

"I've learned a number of things in this 
School that are not written in books," says a 
brown-haired maid, at another time, her arms 
deep in the suds. "I had to learn to live and 
work with other people. I was an only child at 
home and had things my own way. But here 



PICTURES FROM SCHOOL LIFE 183 

and in tlie dining room, when everything you do 
depends on what everybody else does, and if 
you lag or shirk, the whole machinery is out of 
joint, it's — well, it's different." 

^* About the first thing / had to learn was, 
that I was not 'It,' " spoke up a tiny blonde, 
with a grimace which indicated that the lesson, 
though salutary, had not been wholly agreeable. 
' ' I had lived in a little town where I was presi- 
dent of the Epworth League, and leader in every- 
thing. It took me about a month to learn that 
other folks knew more about some things than I 
did." 

''Miss Carpenter says that if you can learn to 
live with saints you can always live with sin- 
ners," remarked some one a little cynically. 
"Maybe there is something in it; maybe sinners 
are good-natured and easy to get along with just 
because they don't care about questions of right 
or wrong." 

A low little laugh broke from an older woman 
who had just finished ironing a fluffy pile of 
white silk ties. 

''You make me think of the old days when I 
was a student," she said, "and what a time my 
room-mate and I had learning to get along to- 
gether. You know we were in the old building 
then and two or three girls occupied one room.'* 

"But you learned? Tell us how you did if 

"Well, at first we were always having polite 
little differences about things. When I wanted 



184 THE BUILDERS 

to open the window, she was afraid of a cold. 
When she wanted to study, I wanted to practice 
my singing lesson, and when I wanted to sleep, 
she would talk. When I left my gloves and veil 
lying about, she put them away where I couldn't 
find them. We grew to be rather out-spoken 
about these things, and naturally they grew 
worse and worse. Each one of us felt that she 
was right and the other wrong. At last, after 
an unusually trying day, we were both at prayer- 
meeting and both ashamed to testify. But we 
had each been praying in secret for a better 
spirit. That night we talked it all over frankly 
and we both agreed that two Christian women 
ought to be able to get along together, even if 
their ways were different. Then we each sol- 
emnly agreed that whenever either of us had 
spoken unkindly to the other she should apolo- 
gize for it before she went to sleep at night. We 
lived up to the agreement, but — " with a shrug 
and a little laugh, — *'we did not enjoy the apolo- 
gizing, and soon found it was easier to avoid the 
necessity for doing so. And when we once had 
formed the habit of setting a guard upon our 
lips, it was not so hard." 

Perhaps the happiest member of the whole big 
family is Miss Maria L. Daly. Certainly none 
contribute more to the happiness of others. 
Fourteen years ago her foster mother, at her 
death, left her small fortune to the School, sub- 
ject to a comfortable annuity for the daughter 



PICTURES FROM SCHOOL LIFE 185 

during her life. Miss Daly being quite free and 
untrammeled, took up her residence in the 
School and has become one of its indispensable 
features. She is one of those women who con- 
tinue to enjoy the society of young people, and 
who consistently decline to grow old themselves. 
From week end to week end, ''She doeth little 
kindnesses," and in the aggregate they amount 
to an imposing balance of happiness which will 
surely appear to her credit when the books are 
opened. With her, '' the reward of one good deed 
is the power to perform another." She slips 
about and whispers mysteriously in the ear of 
this one and that one, naming a room and hour. 
It is enough. No one ever declines an invitation 
from Miss Daly, if fire and floods do not inter- 
vene. At the appointed time and place there is 
gathered a congenial company and a collation fit 
for a king. Such roast chicken and jellies, such 
crisp pickles, such olives, such delicious rolls, 
such ineffable cake, such strawberries, in season 
and out of season ! There are no frills, no con- 
ventionalities to bore tired people, just free and 
easy good fellowship. May she live long and 
prosper, for without her the Training School 
would lack one of its charms and the family one 
of its best loved members. 

Down the hall near the street door is a pile 
of traveling bags and umbrellas and shawl 
straps. Students are hurrying down the stairs 



186 THE BUILDERS 

and through the halls, singly and in groups, and 
gathering near the front of the building. Not 
much is being said. For a wonder, tongues are 
rather silent and faces a little sad. When the 
gathering crowd has overflowed into the parlors 
and pushed back half way up the stairs, Mrs. 
Meyer comes hurrying from her office and be- 
gins singing ^'To the Work." Voices along the 
halls and up the stairs catch the melody. Before 
the hymn is finished a little group of students 
descend the stairs, dressed for the street. One 
of the number has recently been appointed to 
her work in India, and she is leaving the School 
for years, and perhaps forever. Her face is a 
little pale, and there may be a suspicion of re- 
cent tears, but she smiles bravely and joins in 
the song, '^Anywhere with Jesus I Can Safely 
Go," swells up reassuringly and is safely car- 
ried through, though with some quavers not in 
the music as written. But in *' Stand Up, Stand 
Up for Jesus" the voices gather firmness and the 
words ring out with triumphant assurance. 
Then a silence falls and in a few brief words of 
prayer some one lovingly commends the traveler 
to the care of the Heavenly Father. Then there 
are a few words from the departing one, smiles 
flashing through tears; good-bye's are waved 
and ''God Be With You Till We Meet Again" 
speeds her on her way. The last notes fall faintly 
on the ear of the traveler and her little escort 
as the door closes behind them. 



PICTURES FROM SCHOOL LIFE 187 

**Till we meet, till we meet, 
Till we meet at Jesus* feet." 

This practice of '^ singing off'' the out-going 
workers has come dowTi from the early days of 
the School, ^'The partings used to be too sad," 
says Mrs. Meyer. ^'When the family was small, 
and the strain and stress of the new work knit 
our hearts so closely together, it was really like 
the breaking up of a home to send one of our 
number out and know that we might never see 
her again ; so we began singing instead of weep- 
ing, and find it better every way." 

At times during the School year the ^^lowa 
crowd," the *^ Illinois crowd," the '* Kansas 
crowd," or any other ** crowd" that can gather 
members enough to arouse enthusiasm, is liable 
to distinguish itself by some sort of ' ' doings ' ' — 
a march in costume, a new song, a funny par- 
ody, a display of banners, a new ^^yell." These 
demonstrations may occur at any leisure hour, 
but are most likely to surprise the family at sup- 
per time, when the day's tasks are practically 
over. The tension of nerves does not easily re- 
lax, and there may be a slight atmosphere of pre- 
occupation or seriousness not conducive to good 
digestion. Then indications occur that some- 
thing is on foot. Every one becomes alert as the 
plot develops. In a few minutes the room is in 
a gale of laughter and hand clapping, teachers 
and students together. And what a medicine it 
is ! Eyes sparkle, the blood flows more quickly, 



188 THE BUILDERS 

conversation becomes animated, even the closing 
prayer is less formal and more tender and de- 
vout. They believe that every good and perfect 
gift comes from above, and He who made ns 
capable of enjoyment and sensitive to amusing 
or ludicrous situations is pleased with innocent 
laughter as well as with prayer and praise. 

Of late years the '^red-headed crowd" has car- 
ried the palm for originality and vim in these 
demonstrations. On entering the supper room 
one evening eyes were irresistibly attracted by a 
vivid spot of color near the center. One of the 
tables was profusely decorated with red, stream- 
ers of red crepe paper were draped from table 
to ceiling, and in the center glowed a huge lamp 
with a red shade. Radishes, beets, strawberries 
and other highly colored viands were waiting to 
be served. After everybody was seated and the 
blessing asked, eyes were turned expectantly to- 
ward the door. The late comers entered and 
marched with pomp and dignity toward the re- 
served table. They were all dressed in red — red 
skirts, red sweaters, red ribbons, and all sup- 
posedly had red hair; but what Titian tinted 
locks could hold their own in all that dazzling 
environment of color. It must be confessed that 
the crowns of glory were a little dimmed on the 
occasion of their apotheosis. But no matter — • 
their entrance was greeted by a burst of hand- 
clapping. One of the auburn-haired maidens 
rose and delivered an address on red-headed peo- 



PICTURES FROM SCHOOL LIFE 189 

pie, an address as bright and sparkling as the 
subject. King David, Queen Elizabeth, and 
other Vv^orld-renowned characters were summoned 
to prove that red hair indicated a corresponding 
brilliancy of intellect and force of character. 
Toasts and a poem followed, also alight with 
''local color," and the programme closed with 
a chorus of 

''Three cheers for the red m — m — m! 
Three cheers for the red m — m — m! 
Our red-headed maidens forever. 
Three cheers for the red m — m— m!" 

The ''Anniversary Class'' of 1910 was worthy 
of its name. It numbered 81, the largest in the 
history of the School, and was the first to hold 
its graduating exercises in the new Harris Hall 
Chapel. 

What becomes of all the women who, year by 
year, go out, diploma in hand, with minds quick- 
ened and hearts inspired, from this Training 
School ? It must be confessed that many, as the 
years pass, will enter homes of their own; but 
even as wives and mothers the impress of these 
years of training is not lost. Testimonies given 
at the "old students' meetings" tell of a deep- 
ened sense of responsibility, and of the measure- 
less enrichment of life as a whole, through the 
lessons of the School. Many will give three, 
four or five years of service, when perhaps the 
claims of kindred or a failure in health will take 



190 THE BUILDERS 

them out of the work for a season, but the fruit 
of these years of service will remain. Others 
will be found after a life time of blessed work, 
still faithful at their post of duty; and even 
when care has lined their faces they look back 
with joy over a rich harvest of years devoted to 
God and humanity with little thought of self. 
Compare these strong, useful, purposeful lives 
with the aimless, self-seeking existence that they 
might have lived, and the question, *^Did it 
pay?'' is answered before it is asked. 

If women could but know — those whose hands 
are free and whose hearts long for something 
which will satisfy in life — the halls of our Train- 
ing Schools would be crowded, and still new and 
more stately mansions would be demanded in 
coming years to take ** woman's unused energy" 
and turn it into channels of love-inspired service 
for the world's redemption. 



INQUIRE WITHIN 



EXPLANATION. 

It is hoped that many, having read thus far — especially 
young women who may see in what the School offers an 
"open door" for an otherwise repressed and unfruitful 
life — will desire more detailed information. The pages 
following contain extracts from the current "Bulletin" of 
the Chicago Training School for City, Home and Foreign 
Missions, giving some general knowledge of the Courses 
of Study offered. Personal correspondence is also invited. 
Address, Principal, 4949 Indiana Ave., Chicago, 111. 




8 

O 

z 



WOMEN WHO ATTEND THE SCHOOL. 

The school is not Hterary or classical in character 
though the study of the Bible and Social Service has great 
educative value. Its object is to teach and direct earnest 
women in the study of the Bible, Christian Apologetics 
and Doctrine, Sacred and Mission History, Ethics and 
Sociology, the Psychology of Christian effort and the 
multifold forms and methods of Christian Service, both in 
foreign and home lands. The Literary Courses offered — 
Literature, History, English, etc., — are in connection with 
Bible Study, and are intended as foundation work for 
those who, by reason of poor health or other hindrance, 
have not been able to secure good foundation preparation. 
The women who attend the school may be enumerated as 
follows : 

1. Women who desire preparation for the Deaconess 
Work of the Methodist Church, or that of other denomi- 
nations.* 

2. Women looking toward Foreign ** or Home 
Missionary Work under the various Church Societies. 

3. Women interested in Social Service, as carried on 
in Settlements, United Charities and Temperance 
organizations, the Purity Movement, etc. 

4. Women who wish to study Household Economics 
in cooking, housekeeping, dietetics. Home Management, 
etc. 

5. Women who look forward to work among chil- 
dren and young people in Sunday Schools, Industrial 
Schools, Clubs, etc. 

6. Women who will become Pastors' Assistants, or 
Gospel Evangelists as speakers and singers. 

7. Temperance Normal Teachers and Evangelists. 

8. Pastors' wives. 

♦More than a thousand women have been trained in the 
School for deaconess work alone. The great majority of these 
have been Methodists, though the Presbyterian, Congregational, 
Lutheran and other denominations have been represented. 

**Two hundred and twenty-six women trained at the School 
have entered foreign missionary work. 

193 



g. Women who do not expect to enter any specific 
work, but who desire to gain an insight into the conditions 
of the world of today, with its urgent needs and its won- 
derful opportunities. Such women may be students or 
simply auditors. 

We call special attention to the advantages the school 
offers to women who, having time and a desire to become 
acquainted with the newer movements in religious and 
social life, may with very moderate expense become asso- 
ciated with the school, yet need have no responsibility 
other than simply attending classes or lectures when 
desiring to do so. 

GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF WORK OFFERED. 

The methods in class-room work will vary, from the 
catechetical to the formal lecture, with reports and es- 
says by the students ; to be followed by criticism and free 
discussion. Recognition will be made of the riches of 
research and thought stored up in books, by means of 
required and advised readings from the carefully selected 
library in the building and the ver}^ rich libraries of the 
city. 

All study will be conducted in the spirit of scientific 
thoroughness and fairness, yet will be reverent and con- 
servative. Students will be led into methods of wise and 
independent personal research. Examinations, special 
papers and quizzes will test the mastery of subjects. 

The value of all study as contributing to training will 
be kept steadily in mind. It is hoped that from the work 
of every hour something of direct value in practical work 
may be gained. 

The Courses of study offered in the School are care- 
fully grouped for those who contemplate a continuous 
Course, and will be pursued in the "Divisions" indicated 
below. The work of Electives and Auditors is also pro- 
vided for. 

I. The Graduate Division, designated by "A." 
Leading to Degree or Diploma. Open to women who 
hold Bachelors' Degrees from approved colleges, or who 
have had an equivalent amount of mental discipline, to be 

194 



i 



determined by examination. Those who enter with 
Bachelors' degrees receive, on the completion of the two 
years' work and the presentation of a satisfactory thesis 
under conditions prescribed by the Faculty, the degree 
of Master of Christian Service, C. S. M. Those who 
enter on examination receive on satisfactory completion 
of the two years' work, a suitable diploma. 

2. The General Division, designated by ''B." 
Leading to Diploma. Open to women who hold High 
School diplomas, or who have had an equivalent amount 
of study and mental discipline. The work of this Divi- 
sion covers two years. 

3. The Special Division, designated by ''C." Lead- 
ing to Diploma. Open to women who, not having had 
the advantages of High School, desire the mental disci- 
pline and special training of the Courses marked "C." 
The work of this Division covers two years. 

4. Electives. Women who because of limited time 
or a desire to specialize do not wish to enter any one of 
the Divisions A, B, or C, but who desire preparation in 
special subjects such as Bible Study, Normal Temper- 
ance, Young People's Societies, Sunday-school, or Social 
Service, will elect their work under the direction of the 
Faculty Committee on Electives. 

But Elective Study may also be taken, under certain 
restrictions, by students in Divisions A, B, and C. Upon 
completion of any subject a certificate may be given. 

5 Auditors. Women who because of maturer age, 
or for other reason, do not wish to enter the school as 
students, being required to recite, take examinations, etc., 
but who desire to avail themselves of the remarkable 
opportunities the school oflfers to listeners in classes and 
lecturers, will matriculate and will be considered mem- 
bers of the school, subject to the regulations of the 
Halls in which they reside. Or they may choose their 
own boarding places in the city, subject to the approval 
of the Faculty Committee. But as they are exempt from 
active participation in class room work they, of course, 
receive neither degree nor diploma. All the general ad- 
vantages of the school, including library, are open to 
them. 

195 



REQUIRED WORK— UNIT OF WORK. 

Twelve credits in the work of the School are neces- 
sary for graduation. One year's work must be taken in 
residence. 

Not more than seventeen hours a week may be taken 
at one time without special permission. Field work and 
investigation are given credit as is usual in laboratory 
work. 

Seventy-five hours in class-room or laboratory equiva- 
lent to one hour daily throughout a semester — see para- 
graph above for time allowance in laboratory work — 
constitute a ''credit." Five hours constitute a ''point." 

The Courses of Study in the three Divisions are pre- 
sented in tabular form on the pages following. 

It will be noted that in these tables the credits gained 
in the Required Courses do not amount to the number 
necessary for graduation. The deficiency is met by work 
chosen from the Elective Courses. 

DEPARTMENTS OF INSTRUCTION. 

I. Old Testament. 

XL New Testament. 

III. Theology, Apologetics and Interpretation. 

IV. Sociology and Social Service. 
V. Evangelism. 

VI. Methods. 

VII. Home Economics. 

VIII. History. 

IX. English and Literature. 

X. Medicine and Nursing. 

XI. Music. 

XII. Elocution and Physical Culture. 



196 



DEPARTMENTS OF INSTRUCTION, 1910 



I. DEPARTMENT OF OLD TESTAMENT. 

Course 1. A. Old Testament Introduction. 3 points. 

The people of Israel, their historic and Hterary connection 
with neighboring nations; general status of authorship in Old 
Testament times; literary structure — historic, prophetic, poetic, 
apocalj^ptic, etc. ; manuscripts ; the canon ; geography. 

Miss Chappell. 

Course 2. B. Old Testament Introduction. 2 points. 
For description see Course lA. Miss Chappell. 

Course 3. A. The Formative Period of Hebrew History. 

10 points. 

A comparison between Hebrew and other creation accounts, 
with the purpose of emphasizing the religious value of the Bibli- 
cal cosmogony. The contribution of the Semitic race to the 
religious enlightenment of the world. The discoveries of archae- 
ology as establishing the proper historic background; the social 
and religious development of the Hebrew nation and the work 
of its great leaders. Miss Shoenberger. 

Course 4. A. Pre-Exilic History and Prophecy of Israel. 

6 points. 

The work of the prophets as social and religious reformers 
considered in the light of the times for which they wrote. 
Israel's relation to the contemporary world powers and the 
causes of her decline and fall. Selected prophecies will be stud- 
ied in detail. Miss Carpenter. 

Course 5. A. Post-Exilic History and Prophecy of Isreal 

S points. 

The restoration and establishment of the law; the effort to 
incorporate into the national life the ideals gained in the exile 
and the resulting exclusiveness of later Judaism. 

Miss Shoenberger. 

197 



Course 6. B. The Beginnings of Hebrew History. 8 points. 

The conceptions of God as gained from the creation account; 
the Hves of the patriarchs and the work of Moses, the great law- 
giver; modern discoveries as contemporary material; the rites 
and ceremonies of the Hebrews in their symbolic and typical 
significance. Miss Shoenberger. 

Course 7. C. The Beginnings of Hebrev7 History. 8 points. 
For description see Course 6B. Miss Carpenter. 

Course 8. B. The Early History and Prophecy of Israel. 

10 points. 

The Mission and training of Israel in its development from a 
nomadic race to a nation, and the causes of its decline and fall; 
contemporaneous history, especially the side-light of Assyrian 
and other inscriptions; the growth of ideas and ideals in a pro- 
gressive revelation ; the prophets as statesmen and religious 
reformers in relation to their own age and to ours; their concep- 
tion of God and the Messiah with a comparison of the prophetic 
messages. Miss Shoenberger. 

Course 9. C. Early History and Prophecy of Israel. 8 

points. 

For description see Course 8B. Miss Carpenter. 

Course 10. B. The Later History and Prophecy of Israel. 

6 points. 

The study of the Restoration Period; the lessons of the exile 
with a recognition of the narrowing influence of legalism and 
the decline of prophetism. Miss Carpenter. 

Course 11. C. The Later History and Prophecy of Israel. 

4 points. 

For description see Course loB. Miss Carpenter. 

Course 12. A. The Priest and His Work. Elective. 2 
points. 

A. study of the history of the Levitical Priesthood ; work and 
influence of the Priest in the various periods of Israelitish his- 
tory. Miss Shoenberger. 

Course 13. A.B. The Manners and Customs of the He- 
brews. Elective. 2 points. 

198 



The rise and development of primitive customs; their bear- 
ing upon interpretation of Scripture. 

Miss Shoenberger. 

Course 14. A. Studies in Hebrew Poetry. Elective. 5 
points. 

Parallelism ; Classification of literary forms ; the Biblical 
ode; elegies; liturgical Psalms; dramatic lyrics; the lyric idyl; 
epic poetry. This work is based on intensive study of the 
Psalms, the book of Job, Song of Songs and Lamentations. 

Miss Crook. 

Course 15. B.C. Studies in Hebrew Poetry. Elective. 5 
points. 

An interpretative stud\% wherein are noted the characteristics 
of Hebrew style, poetic form and development; taken from 
Psalms, Lamentations, Song of Songs and an intensive study of 
the book of Job. Miss Crook. 

Dr. Wyckofr. 

Course 16. A. General Survey of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes 
and the Book of Job. Elective. 4 points. 

Study of the literary form.s in their relation to the interpreta- 
tion of each book; consideration of the probable writers, the 
general features of their philosophy, the problems presented and 
the practical teaching. Job is considered as described under 
Course 14A. Miss Crook. 

Course 17. B.C. Wisdom Literature. Elective. 4 points. 
For description see Course 16A. Miss Crook. 

IL DEPARTMENT OF NEW TESTAMENT. 

Course 20. A. Studies in the Life of Christ. 10 points. 

A review of that period of history, preceding the coming of 
Christ, in which parties and tendencies operative in New Testa- 
ment times had their rise and development; questions relating to 
Jesus' birth; a view of the three years' ministr^^ showing Jesus' 
divine self-consciousness, his self-revelation to the disciples and 
the growth of their belief; the development of the hostility of 
Jewish authorities; a special study of the "Kingdom of God", 
"the Son of Man", miracles, parables, etc. Special Passion 
Week studies. ' Miss Chappell. 

199 



Course 21. B. Life of Christ. 10 points. 

A preparatory study of the period of Jewish History from 
the exile to the advent during which parties and tendencies 
familiar to the New Testament student had their rise and devel- 
opment; a preparation of the world for the new revelation; our 
sources for the construction of the life of Jesus; the events of 
the life as far as possible chronologically arranged, showing his 
progressive self-revelation to his disciples, the corresponding 
growth of their belief in him and the development of the hostil- 
ity of the Jewish leaders which culminated in their rejection of 
him. Special Passion Week studies. Miss Chappell. 

Course 22. C. Life of Christ. 8 points. 

For description see Course 2iB. Miss Hamer. 

Course 23. A. Studies in the Fourth Gospel. Elective. 2 
points. 

Questions of date, authorship and purpose of this Gospel; its 
relation to the synoptics; the Logos-doctrine; a detailed study of 
certain portions. Miss Chappell. 

Course 24. A. The Synoptic Problem. Elective. 2 points. 
Study of the origin, structure and relations to each other of 
the Synoptic Gospels. Miss Chappell. 

Course 25. A.B.C.* The Teaching of Jesus. 2 points. 
See Department III. Course 44. 

Course 26. A.B.C. Biblical Exposition. Elective. 4 points. 
Expository lectures on the miracles and parables of our 
Lord. Dr. Parkhurst. 

Course 27. A. Early Apostolic History and Writings. 9 

points. 

The founding of the Christian church and its progress 
through the Roman Empire including the study of the Pauline 
conception of Christianity as derived from his epistles to the 
Galatians, Corinthians, Romans, Colossians and Ephesians. 

Miss Hamer. 



*The three divisions, A, B and C, are of course, quite 
separately organized. They meet together, however, for some 
courses of lectures given by non-resident instructors, and for 
some other work individual in character. 

200 



Course 28. B. Acts and Early Pauline Epistles. 10 points. 

A study of the development of the Apostolic Church with 
special attention to its spread among the Gentiles and the prob- 
lems which it met. The early letters of Paul are considered in 
connection with the history for the light they throw upon the 
conditions and the doctrinal teachings of the times. 

Miss Hamer. 

Course 29. C. Acts and Early Pauline Epistles. 8 points. 
For description see Course 28B. Miss Chappell. 

Course 30. A. Studies in Selected Epistles. Elective. 6 
points. 

A brief survey of the Prison, Pastoral and General epistles, 
with more detailed study of Ephesians, i Peter, James and i 
John. 

Course 31. B.C. Prison and Pastoral Epistles. Elective. 3 

points. 

A continuation of Courses 28 and 29. The method of study 
is the same. 

Course 32. B.C. General Epistles. Elective. 3 points. 
A consideration of the epistles in their practical teachings. 

Miss Hamer. 

Course 33. A. Apocalyptics. Elective. 3 points. 

Miss Shoenberger. 
Miss Carpenter. 

Course 34. B.C. Revelation. Elective. 2 points. 

A study of the general import and object of the book; a dis- 
cussion of some of the principles of God's dealings with the 
world; and an interpretation of Apocalyptic symbolism as an 
important feature of this book. Miss Shoenberger. 

Course 35. A. Introduction to N. T. Greek. 1 cr., 3 points. 
Studies based on Huddilston's Essentials in New Testament 
Greek supplemented by Goodwin's Greek grammar. 

Miss Crook. 

201 



Course 36. A. Readings from the N. T. in Greek. 1 cr., 
3 points. Selections from Luke and Acts with especial at- 
tention to Luke's literary style and other characteristics; se- 
lections from the Epistles. Miss Chappell. 

Course 37. B. Introduction to N. T. Greek. 1 cr., 3 points. 

Study based on Huddilston's Essentials of New Testament 
Greek, and giving the student a sufficient working knowledge of 
the principles of the Greek language to enable her to read the 
New Testament in the original. Miss Crook. 

Course 88. B. The Gospel of John and other selected 
readings from Greek New Testament. Elective. 1 cr., 3 
points. 

Emphasis on construction in the First Semester, rapid reading 
in the second Semester. Miss Chappell. 

III. DEPARTMENT OF THEOLOGY APOLOGETICS 
AND INTERPRETATION. 

Course 40. A. Vital Issues in Religious Thought. 5 points. 

Religions and Religion ; Development of the Idea of God and 
the Progressive Nature of Revelation; the Natural and the 
Supernatural; Christian Science and Allied Movements; Modern 
Science and Faith; Higher and Lower Criticism ;Helpful Books. 

Mrs. Meyer. 

Course 41.* A.B.C. Biblical Interpretation. 2 points. 

The Bible, its formation and preservation, difficulties arising 
from age, language and Oriental character, etc. ; history and rules 
of interpretation, necessary qualification of interpreter. Special 
interpretation of Psalms, Parables, Apocalypse and Prophecy. 

Dr. Lesemann. 

Course 42.* B.C. Christian Evidences. 1 point. 

The reasonableness of Christianity; its correct historical tra- 
ditions, substantiated claims and world power; its significance to 
the individual and to the race. Dr. Shepard. 



* Offered in 1908-09 and alternate years. 

202 



Course 43. B.C. Studies in Christian Doctrine.* Elective. 
2 points. 

A brief consideration of the fundamental tenets of the Chris- 
tian faith — the value of Scripture ; God and his attributes ; the 
incarnation; the Holy Spirit; regeneration and sanctification ; 
the sacraments; Eschatology. Dr. Enwall. 

Course 44. A.B.C. The Teaching of Jesus. 2 points. 
See Department II. C. 25. Dr. Thomas. 

Course 45. A.B.C. The Office of the Holy Spirit. 2 points. 

Dr. Parkhurst. 

Course 46. A.B.C. Popular Bible Studies. 

A presentation of subjects selected from both the Old and 
the New Testaments, designed to give not only instruction in 
subject matter, but suggestions as to methods of presenting Bible 
addresses and studies to popular audiences. See Dept. VI., 70. 

Mrs. Meyer. 

Course 47. A.B. Comparative Religion. Elective. 2 points. 

A brief survey of the great religions of the world followed 
by a comparative study of the cardinal teachings of Christianity 
with those of five extant religions. Miss Satterthwait. 

Course 48. B. Elements of Psychology and Ethics. Elec- 
tive. 9 points. 

Study of the self in its threefold capacity/ — knowing, feeling, 
willing — and the principles of psychical development. Essen- 
tial principles of Ethics — the moral faculty and conscience; moral 
law; the will; virtue and theories of virtue. Practical morality 
— duties to God, self, and fellow-beings. 

Miss Hamer. 

IV. DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY AND SOCIAL 
SERVICE. 

Course 50. B. Elements of Sociology. 10 points. 
Introductory study of social origins, evolution, structure, 
activities and organization. Textbook. Miss Pine. 



♦Offered in 1909-10 and alternate years. 

203 



Course 51. B.C. Philanthropy and Social Problems. 12 

points. 

A general study of abnormal conditions and classes in so- 
ciety and various methods of relief and reform. Miss Pine. 

Course 52. A.B.C. Practice Work and Investigation. 3 

points. 

Visiting under supervision of pastors or Bureau of Charities. 
Teaching in Industrial-schools, Sunday-schools, Junior Leagues. 
Class-room conferences provide opportunity for discussion of 
the conditions and needs of the various fields. (See Dept. VI. 
71.) Miss Bjornberg. 

Course 53. A. Charities and Corrections. 12 points. 

A study of poverty, pauperism, crime and social degeneracy, 
their causes, prevention and remedy; a consideration of charit- 
able, correctional and penal institutions and organizations. Pre- 
requisite, 50. Miss Pine. 

Course 54. A. Social Problems and Reforms. 12 points. 

A continuation of Course 53. 

A study of other abnormal conditions such as arise from the 
rapid growth of cities, immigration, industrial pressure, civic 
corruption, etc. The attempts at social amelioration, individual 
and collective, by organizations and institutions. 

Miss Pine. 

Course 55. A. Social Mission of the Church. 9 points. 

A study of the Church with reference to its efficiency in 
meeting the needs of the whole man — physical, social and spirit- 
ual. Club work, lunch rooms, day nurseries, libraries; the 
Church as a social centre. Miss Pine. 

Not given 1909-10. 

Course 56. A.B.C. Scientific Temperance. Elective. 9 
points. 

A thorough Normal Course in which are presented the in- 
dividual and social aspects of the liquor problem; the rela- 
tion of the use of liquor to poverty, to crime, to insanity, to 
efficiency and reliability. A study of the laws relating to 
the traffic in liquor in various states; relation of the saloon 
to the home, to the brewer, to politics. Miss Pine. 

204 



Course 57. A.B. Scientific Temperance. 6 points. 

Seminar. The properties of alcohol and alcoholic drinks; 
their physical and psychologic effects; methods of control of 
liquor traffic and proposed solutions; the work of reform 
organizations in education and legislation. Miss Pine. 

For other Courses see Department of Methods. VI. 

V. DEPARTMENT OF EVANGELISM. 

Course 60. B.C. Individual Evangelism. Elective. 3 points. 
A consideration of methods and plans of personal work, 
classes of individuals and how to meet their needs. 

Miss Shoenberger. 

Course 61. B.C.* World Wide Evangelism. 5 points. 

Introductory study of Modern Missions, Home and Foreign. 
Scriptural basis, development, problem and methods of work in 
modern missions. Difficulties, problems, needs and achievements 
in particular fields. The home field and the foreign field are con- 
sidered separately. Miss Hamer. 

Course 62. A. The Psychology of Evangelism. Elective. 
3 points. 

The new psychological study of religion; the individual; va- 
rieties of religious experience; use of psychological principles 
in work with individuals; general principles and methods. 

Miss Shoenberger. 

Course 63. A.B. Special Mission Fields. 5 points. 

Seminar. This course is designed for those preparing for 
foreign missionary service. Each student will select a mis- 
sion field and will make a study of its geography, history, 
government, literature, religions, etc. Not offered in 1910-11. 

VI. DEPARTMENT OF METHODS. 

Course 70. B.C. Individual Evangelism. Elective. 3 points. 
See Dept. V, 6o. 

Course 71. A.B.C. Pastoral Work and Friendly Visiting. 
2 points. 

The ob ject of this Course is to give the student the necessary 

♦This subject for Division A is considered in Course 91. 

205 



knowledge of the City, and the best methods of pastoral and 
house-to-house visiting. See Department IV, 52. 

Dr. Shepard and Miss Bjornberg. 

Course 72.t A.B.C. Religious Pedagogy. Elective. 12 
points. 

(a) Child Study. This study forms a general introduction 
to the Course. Periods of child development from the psycho- 
logical point of view; the relative influence of heredity and en- 
vironment ; the place of religion in the development of the child ; 
methods of teaching for the unfolding of a normal spiritual life. 

Miss Shoenberger. 

(b) Primary Methods; Model Sunday-school lessons; Sun- 
day-school teaching and organization; Junior and Epworth 
League methods. The work is presented in lectures by Miss 
Johnston, Miss Robinson, Dr. Brummitt and eminent Sunday- 
school specialists. 

Course 73. A.B.C. Industrial Work for Children. Elective. 

6 points. 

(a) Craft Work. Bookbinding and designs; sewing (paper 
and burlap) ; Reed and raffia work; weaving hammocks and rugs 
(hand-made looms) ; construction work in making furniture from 
paper. 

(b) Sewing. (See Dept. VII, 82.) 

(c) Kitchengarden. (See Dept. VII, 83.) 

Course 74. A.B.C. Club Management. Elective. 2 points. 
Methods of conducting clubs for children, young people and 
adults. 

Course 75. A.B.C. Domestic Science. Elective. 6 points. 
See Dept. VII, 80. 

Course 76. A.B.C Parliamentary Drill 1 point. 

This Course affords class drill in Parliamentary usages for the 
conduct of meetings and the organization of societies. (See 
Dept. XII, 132.) Mr. Ruther. 

Course 77. A. Public Speaking, Conduct of Meetings. 5 

points. 

Studies in the messages of Hebrew prophets and modern 

t (a) is offered separately to Division A. 

206 



preachers; preparation and delivery of addresses; suggestions 
and criticisms. Miss Carpenter. 

Course 78, B. Practice in Public Speaking. Elective. C 
by permission. 5 points. 

Preparation and delivery of an address on some Bible subject 
by each member of the class; suggestion and criticism; prelim- 
inary work on outlines for logical arrangement, unity and pro- 
portion; special drill on introductions and conclusions; the use 
of illustrations; the point of contact with the audience; the 
working out of a definite aim; power in appeal; ease in delivery. 

Miss Carpenter. 

Course 79. A.B.C. Popular Bible Studies. 
(See Deptlll, 46.) 

VII. DEPARTMENT OF HOME ECONOMICS. 
All Courses Elective for A.B.C. 

Course 80. Domestic Science. 6 points. 

A study of the care of food materials ; the application of heat. 
A course in dietaries, arrangement of menus in season ; principles 
of nutrition; serving. (See Dept. VI. 75.) 

Course 81. Sanitation and Care of the House. 2 points. 

The care of the house and its relation to individual and public 
health; house furnishing and decoration, their cultural value, and 
the part they play in the development of the artistic sense. The 
evolution of the true home. 

Course 82. Sewing. 3 points. 

A system whereby sewing may be taught to children; stitches, 
seams, model garments. (See Dept. VI, "jz (b).) 

Course 83. Kitchengarden. 2 points. 

A system for teaching good housekeeping to children by the 
kindergarten method. (See Dept. VI, "jz (c).) 

VIII. DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY. 

Course 90. B.C. History of the Sacred Canon. 2 points. 
A brief study of the origin, preservation and Rabbinical inter- 
pretation of the Hebrew Scriptures. Formation of the New 

207 



Testament Canon with a consideration of the preservation, trans- 
mission and translation of the Bible. Miss Sweet. 

Course 91. A. Studies in Church History. 1 credit. 

A study of developments and turning points in the history of 
the Christian Church. The Early Church — conflict of Christianity 
with heathenism ; conversion of the barbarians ; rise of the Roman 
hierarchy ; doctrinal controversies ; ritualistic development. The 
Mediaeval Church — papal contest for supremacy; results of the 
crusades; scholasticism; humanism; the great schism; forerun- 
ners of the Reformation. The Modern Period — the German 
Reformation; great reformers; the character and results of the 
Reformation in the different countries; the counter Reforma- 
tion, Calvinism and Arminianism; dissent in the English 
Church; church development in the American colonies; the 
papacy in the XIX Century; achievements of modern Christian- 
ity at home and abroad. Miss Crook. 

Miss Hamer. 

Course 92. B. History of the Christian Church. 10 points. 

A general survey of the progress of Christianity from the 
founding of the church to the present, noting the missionary 
activity, polity, doctrine, life and worship, with special attention 
to great movements and turning points in its history. 

Miss Crook. 

Course 93. C. Outlines of Church History. S points. 
See Course 92. Miss Crook. 

Course 94. A.B.C. History of Methodism, Elective. 4 
points. 

A consideration of the condition of England in the XVII 
Century, German pietism and English deism prefaces the work of 
Wesley and his associates. Special attention is given to the his- 
tory, polity and teaching of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
closing with a brief summary of the leading branches of Method- 
ism. 

Course 95. A.B.C. Deaconess Work. Elective. 1 point. 
Sisterhoods; the Diaconate in early and later history. 

Mr. Meyer, Dr. H. G. Jackson, Mrs. Meyer. 

208 



Course 96. C. General History. 1 cr., 5 points. 

This work is based on and completes the textbook, Myers' 
General History. A study of sources based upon the outlines 
of Sheldon and other texts, together with visits to the Museums 
of Chicago supplement the work. Miss Arnold. 

IX. DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH AND LITERATURE. 

Course 100. C. Rhetoric and Composition. 5 points. 
Principles of composition, oral and written, theme work and 
practice in speaking. Miss Arnold. 

Course lOL C. The History of English Literature. 5 

points. 

A general outline of English literature, noting the important 
facts of its history from the early English period dow^n to the 
present century and marking such currents of literary influence as 
those of Classicism, and the Romantic movement, is supplied 
the student by this Course. Reports requiring biographical and 
historical research are made by the student, and supplementary 
reading is required. Miss Arnold. 

Course 102. C. Interpretative English. 9 points. 

An intensive study: of the dramas As You Like It, Julius 
Caesar, Merchant of Venice, and Macbeth; parts of Paradise 
Lost; Ode on Intimations of Immortality; Ancient Mariner; 
The Deserted Village; The Cotter's Saturday Night; Saul; 
In Memoriam; Tale of Two Cities; Ivanhoe; Silas Marner. 

Course 103. C. History of American Literature. 4 points. 

Review of the Colonial, Revolutionary and National Periods 
tracing the growth of a distinctive literature. A consideration of 
the Puritan element, the transcendental movement, the gradual 
development of the short story and the magazine, its place in 
American life and literature. Miss Arnold. 

Course 104. C. Studies in American Literature. 6 points. 

Intensive Studies in American Literature : Rip Van Winkle, 
Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Thanatopsis, The Yellow^ Violet, The 
Flood of Years, The American Scholar, Each and All, The Snow- 
storm, Snow Bound, Evangeline, The Vision of Sir Launfal, The 
Chambered Nautilus, The Present Crisis. 

209 



Reviews of certain books are required — The Last of the Mo- 
hicans, The Scarlet Letter, The Marble Faun, and some more re- 
cent fiction. Miss Arnold. 

X. DEPARTMENT OF MEDICINE AND NURSING.* 

These Courses are elementary and are designed to help the 
student deal intelligently with the exigencies so frequently met 
in life. Elective for A.B.C. 8 points. 

Course 110. Anatomy, Physiology and Hygiene. Dr. Root. 
Course ill. Care of Special Organs. 

The Eye. Dr. Hollister. 

The Teeth. Dr. Newton. 

The Nose and Throat. Dr. Younger. 

Course 112. Surgical Emergencies. Dr. Dudley Jackson. 

Course 113. Infectious Diseases. Dr. Dudley Jackson. 

Course 114. Diseases of Women and Emergency obstet- 
rics. Dr. Jessie Brown-Dodds, Dr. Root. 

Course 115. Nursing. Dr. Dudley Jackson 

XL DEPARTMENT OF MUSIC. 

Elective for A. B. and C. The aim of this Department is 
to create in the student a desire for the best in music, as well 
as to give skill in execution. Students may enter for any time. 
The time required to finish the course depends upon the adapta- 
bility of the pupil and the amount of time devoted daily to the 
study. 

Students may obtain tickets for the oratorios given by the 
Apollo Musical Club and for the concerts given by the Theodore 
Thomas Orchestra for a nominal price. 

Course 120. First Year Chorus. 8 points. 

A study of the elements of music; sight singing, one, two, 
three parts; ear training, study of the lives of gospel song 
writers, practical drill in leading and teaching songs. 

Miss Dalbey. 

Course 121. Second Year Chorus. 8 points. 

Part singing, proper breathing, drill in processionals, study of 

* Offered in 1909-10 and alternate years. 

210 



various choruses and cantatas. Second year chorus assists in 
entertainments throughout the year. 

Miss Dalbey. 

Course 122. Hymnology. 2 points. 

A study of the lives of noted hymnists, ancient and modern. 
Also stories connected with the writing and using of hymns, 
short study of hymn tunes and great oratorios. 

Miss Dalbey, Miss Randall. 

Course 123. Voice. 10 points.* 

Pupils study proper breathing, tone placing, enunciation and 
expression. Various vocalises and songs are studied. Emphasis 
is placed on ease and naturalness in singing with power in prop- 
erly rendering songs. Miss Dalbey. 

Course 124. Piano. 10 points.* 

The rudiments of music, elementary harmony, and the under- 
lying principles of touch and technique are taught. 

For elementary students Matthews' Studies grades I and II, 
Kohler op. 157, Loeschhorn op. 66, Sonatinas by Clemen ti, Kuh- 
lau, Reinecke, Gurlitt, and pieces by the best composers for this 
grade are used. 

For intermediate and advanced students the following are 
used: Bach two-part and three-part Inventions; Turner pedal 
and octave studies; Etudes by Heller, Czerny, Cramer, Clementi 
Gradus ad Parnassum; sonatas by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven; 
selections from the easier works of Schubert ; Schumann, Chopin, 
Mendelssohn and others. Miss Randall. 

Course 125. Organ. 10 points.* 

Organ touch, pedal technique, and registration are taught 
from the beginning. Especial attention will be given to the 
playing of church music. 

Prerequisite, the rudiments of music and considerable skill 
in sight-reading and piano playing. Miss Randall. 

*Each year for one lesson per week, with practice. For 

two lessons per week, IS points. 

211 



XII. DEPARTMENT OF ELOCUTION AND PHYSICAL 
CULTURE. 

Course 130. A.B.C. Principles of Oral Interpretation. 
Elective. 10 points.* 

The cultivation of the speaking voice, the evolution of ex- 
pression, presentation of selections for criticism, interpretation 
of Biblical literature. Miss Eisner. 

Course 131. A.B.C. Physical Culture. Elective. 
Gilbert rhythmic exercises, free hand movements, wands, 
Swedish movement. Practice teaching, outlying class work. 

Miss Eisner. 

Course 132. A.B.C. Parliamentary Drill. Elective. 

See Dept. VI, 76. Mr. Ruther. 

Course 133. Class Drill in Voice Culture and Public 
Speaking. 6 points. Miss Eisner. 



'''Each year for one lesson per week, with practice. 



i 



212 



FACULTY— I9n 



RESIDENT INSTRUCTORS 

Lucy Rider Meyer, A. M., M. D. 
Instructor in Bible 

A. B. Oberlin College, 1872; A. M. ibid, 1880; Student Woman's Medical 
School of Pennsylvania, 1873-5; Student Boston School of Technology, 1877-8; 
Teacher of Natural Science, Cook County Normal School, 1878-9; Professor Natu- 
ral Science, McKendree College, 1879-81; in employ of Illinois State S. S. Ass'n, 
1881-8S; M. D. Woman's Medical College of Northwestern University, 1887; 

Principal and Teacher Chicago Training School for Missions, 1885 ; Graduate 

student Divinity School University of Chicago, 1907. 

Winifred L. Chappell, Ph. B. 

Instructor in Bible aftd Greek 
Ph. B. Northwestern University, 1903; Teacher Public Schools, 1903-1906; 
Graduate Chicago Training School, 1907; Graduate student Divinity School 
University of Chicago, 1909; Teacher Chicago Training School, 1907 . 

Olive Shoenberger 

Instructor in Bible and Child Study 
Teacher Public Schools, 1888-1897; Student Washburn College, 1897-98; Teacher 
Public School, 1898-1900; Graduate Chicago Training School, 1902; Student 
1902, 190S, Divinity School University of Chicago; Teacher Chicago Training 
School, 1902 . 

Clarice H. Rearick, B. A. 

Instructor in Bible. 

B. A., Knox College, Galesburg, 1904; Student Chicago Training School, 
1910; Teacher Chicago Training School, 1910 — -. 

Annie H. Carpenter, B. L. 

Instructor in Old Testament and Methods, 
B. L, Lawrence College, 1892; Teacher Public Schools, 1892-189$; Gradu- 
ate Student University of Chicago, 1895-6; Teacher Public Schools, 1896-1907; 
Graduate Chicago Training School, 1908; Teacher Chicago Training School, 
1908 . 

Mary B. Sweet, B. A. 

Instructor in Bible and History 
Graduate College of the Sisters of Bethany, Topeka, Kans., 1898; Woman's 
College of Baltimore, 1898-1900; B. A., Kansas University, 1903; Graduate Chicago 
Training School, 1904; Teacher Chicago Training School, 1904- — . 

Maude Hamer, M. A. 

Instructor in Bible and Missions 
B. L., Ohio Wesleyan University, 1904; M. A., Ohio Wesleyan University, 
1908; Teacher Public Schools, 1897-1900; Assistant in English Department, Ohio 
Wesleyan University, and graduate student, 1906-1908; Teacher Chicago Train- 
ing School, 1908 . 

213 



J. Shelly Meyer 

Instructor in Methods 
Park College, 1880; Secretary Y. M. C. A., 1882.4; Northwestern Theological 
Seminary, 1884-S; Superintendent and Teacher, Chicago Training School, 1885 

Esther E. Bjornberg, Ph. B. 

Instructor in Sociology and Practical Investigation 

Teacher Public Schools, 1894-98; Ph. B., University of Chicago, 1904; Gradu- 
ate Chicago Training School, 1909; Student Divinity School, University of 
Chicago, 1909; Teacher Chicago Training School, 1909 . 

W. May Crook, M. A. 

Instructor in Bible and History. Registrar , 
B. A., Wesleyan University, 1885; M. A., Wesleyan University, 1888; Teacher 
Public Schools, Hudson, Mass., 1887-1890; Teacher English Literature, High 
School, Springfield, Mass., 1890-1909; Student Chicago Training School, 1909, 1910. 

Anna Arnold 

Ifts true tor in English 

Centerville Academy, 1875-1876; lov^ra Agricultural College, 1882; Teacher and 
Principal Public Schools, 1883-1903; Garrett Biblical, 1904; Graduate Chicago 
Training School, 1905; student Divinity School University of Chicago, 1909; 
Teacher Chicago Training School, 1905 . 

Loraine E. Dalbey 

Instructor in Vocal Music 
Ohio Wesleyan Conservatory, 1895-1896; Northwestern University Conserva- 
tory, 1897; Teacher Public Schools, 1898-1901; Pupil of Karlston Hackett, 1903- 
1904, 1906; Graduate Chicago Training School, 1904; Teacher in Chicago Train- 
ing School, 1905 . 

Agnes Randall 

Instructor in Piano and Pipe Organ 
Graduate Cornell College Conservatory, 1891; Teacher of Music in Public 
Schools, Algona, la., 1892-189S; Pupil of Private Instructors, Piano and Organ, 
Milwaukee, Wis.; Teacher of Piano, 1891-1903; Church Oganist, Milwaukee, Wis., 
1898-1903; Graduate Chicago Training School 1905; Teacher Chicago Training 
School, 1903 . 

Anna Elsner 

Instructor in Elocutioft and Physical Culture 
Graduate Fremont Normal. 1895, in Teacher's Training Course and Elocu- 
tion; Teacher 189S-1897; Graduate Soper School of Oratory, Chicago, 1898; 
Reader with Gustava Male Quartette, 1899-1900; Teacher of Elocution in Dakota 
University, 1900-1904; Student Sargeant Normal Physical Training, 1904-1905; 
Graduate Chicago Training School, 1906; Teacher Physical Culture and Elocu- 
tion, Chicago Training School, 1906, 1909 

214 



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